SDLTM00270 - Scope: What is chargeable

Land transactions: Meaning of acquisition FA03/S43

An acquisition can take the form of the creation, surrender, release or variation of a chargeable interest.

Exceptions from a grant and reservations out of a grant, for example the reservation of an easement, are not themselves land transactions for stamp duty land tax purposes. This is notwithstanding the fact that in conveyancing theory a reservation operates by way of re-grant.

It follows that the presence of an exception or reservation does not of itself mean that there is an exchange. See SDLTM01410.

By contrast where a sale of land is wholly or partly in consideration of a lease-back of all or part of the land, the sale and the lease-back are distinct transactions and there is an exchange.

Chargeable interest is defined at SDLTM00280.