Do we pay stamp duty when we buy a building?

England: SDLT applies, with its own charity relief, set out in full below. Northern Ireland: also SDLT. It is not a devolved tax here, unlike business rates — see below. Scotland: a different, devolved tax, LBTT, with its own relief and clawback rules, read directly from the statute for this page. Wales: also devolved — LTT, with its own relief. This page checked Wales less closely than Scotland. Do not assume its rules match SDLT or LBTT without checking Welsh Revenue Authority sources directly.

Which land tax applies in each part of the UK?

It depends on where the land is: SDLT in England and Northern Ireland, LBTT in Scotland and LTT in Wales. Northern Ireland is not devolved for this, even though it is for rates. Charity stamp duty relief, strictly, is the SDLT relief. Trustees buying in Scotland or Wales deal with Revenue Scotland or the Welsh Revenue Authority instead.

Charities relief is the relief each of these taxes gives a charity buying land. The charity must be buying it to hold for its charitable purposes, or as an investment that supports them. Land can also reach a charity when another charity closes and transfers its remaining assets. This page is about the tax on the transaction, however the land arrives.

This page overturns an assumption carried from the page on business rates relief. Rates are devolved in Northern Ireland: its own Order, its own exemption mechanism, structurally different from England’s.

Land transaction tax is not devolved there. Some charities assume, by analogy with rates, that Northern Ireland runs its own land transaction tax. They are looking at the wrong tax and the wrong relief entirely.

The table shows which tax applies, by where the land is — not by where the charity operates:

A charity buying premises in Belfast and premises in Glasgow deals with two entirely different taxes. Two different reliefs, and two different sets of clawback rules, apply — not one relief applied twice.

How does charity relief from LBTT work in Scotland?

Scotland’s charity relief from LBTT is a full exemption from charge, not merely a lower rate. The charity assesses its own eligibility on its own return. There is no pre-approval step from Revenue Scotland at the point of claiming it. Two conditions must both be met:

• the charity must intend to hold the land, or the greater part of it, for its own charitable purposes or as an investment whose profits support them
• the transaction must not have been entered into to avoid the tax

A clawback is the withdrawal of a relief already claimed, triggered by a later disqualifying event. In Scotland it works the same way as the relief: self-assessed, not consent-based.

A disqualifying event might be the charity ceasing to be a charity, or the land no longer being used for charitable purposes. If one happens within three years of the transaction, the charity itself must file a further return. It must do so within thirty days of the event, without waiting to be asked.

A later transfer, or a low-value lease, of land that only partly qualified, to a non-charity, can also trigger the same clawback.

Where a charity buys jointly with a non-charity, only a proportionate part of the relief is available. The part is based on the lower of two shares: the charity’s ownership share, and the share of the price it paid.

Does a gift of Scottish land need a relief claim?

Often not. An outright gift, with no debt and nothing given in return, already falls outside LBTT altogether. There is no chargeable transaction to relieve in the first place, so no return and no relief claim are needed. This point is often missed, and it changes what a charity needs to do when it receives a gift of Scottish land.

The relief only becomes relevant once the transaction does carry some form of payment. Most commonly, the charity takes the land subject to a mortgage or other secured debt. It then effectively takes on that debt as part of the deal. That assumed debt is treated as the price paid.

That makes the transaction chargeable, and it is only then that the charity needs to actively claim the relief.

Charity relief from SDLT, and from LTT in Wales

SDLT and Welsh LTT each have their own charity relief, but this page checked the Welsh relief less closely than SDLT and LBTT.

SDLT covers England and Northern Ireland. Its own charity relief follows a broadly similar shape to Scotland’s: a charitable-purpose condition, and a clawback on a disqualifying event within a defined period.

Wales runs its own separate relief under LTT. This page checked that the Welsh relief exists, but not its detailed conditions, to the same depth as SDLT and Scotland. Do not assume its conditions or clawback period mirror SDLT or LBTT. Check directly against Welsh Revenue Authority guidance first.

Buying land, and the separate rules on selling it

This page answers a tax question about buying land. It sits alongside a distinct charity-law question that it does not answer.

Charity trustees need a court or Commission order before disposing of charity land in England and Wales, unless a specific self-certification route applies. That route requires getting and considering a designated adviser’s report before, not after, entering into an agreement. The page on your obligations before disposing of charity land covers that separately. This page is about the tax on buying, not the charity-law permission needed to sell.

For a gift of land or shares, the next step is to accept gifts of shares or property tax-efficiently.

Common mistake: assuming Northern Ireland has its own land transaction tax

Northern Ireland is devolved for business rates. Scotland and Wales are devolved for land transaction tax. The pattern seems to point the same way for Northern Ireland. It does not. Northern Ireland sits inside SDLT, the same tax as England. A charity applying LBTT or LTT here is looking at the wrong tax entirely.

Worked example

A charity buys premises in Belfast and premises in Glasgow. The Belfast building sits within SDLT — the same tax and the same relief conditions as an equivalent building bought in England. The Glasgow building sits within LBTT: a separate tax, with its own relief, its own self-assessed clawback, and its own three-year clock.

The result is two different regimes, two different reliefs and two sets of paperwork. From the charity’s side, it looks like the same kind of transaction.