The establishment of culpability should be kept in mind
throughout the enquiry. A compliance caseworker may be unable to
make up their mind finally about the extent of culpability until
the closing stages of the enquiry, but the purchaser and their
agent should not be allowed to assume that lack of culpability has
been accepted in the meantime.
Any attempt to shift the blame for irregularities onto any
other person, for instance the agent or HM Revenue & Customs
should be reviewed critically.
Even if the land transaction return has been completed by
someone else, the purchaser remains responsible for it’s
accuracy because they signed the land transaction return and have
made a statutory declaration that the land transaction return is
correct and complete.
SDLTM86100+ refers to penalties.
