Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, as experts say the Deputy PM “cut corners” by using a cheaper local law firm. The Telegraph has more.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow to the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it had advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, the Managing Director, told the Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator, based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner. That’s what we used, and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this, and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events.
“They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty”.
It is understood Ms Rayner is arguing that she received at least three pieces of legal advice, including from the trust overseeing her son’s affairs and a conveyancer, supporting her initial position.
Worth reading in full.
Meanwhile, the Times quotes Heather Powell, a partner at Blick Rothenberg specialising in property, saying Rayner appears to have been “cutting corners”:
If I was Angela Rayner, I would have made sure that Rothley Law did the conveyancing. I’ve no idea what her mindset was, but she might have been thinking that it’s a simple purchase, it’s an £800,000 flat, she needs a local lawyer who knows about the development and they’re going to charge a quarter of the fees that [Rothley Law] would, who have leading lawyers. In that instance she could have been cutting corners a bit.
Though why she should need expensive lawyers to tell her something spelled out clearly on the HMRC website is a mystery. Sounds like something may have gone wrong with the use of the HMRC ‘online calculator’ – though was it Rayner failing to provide complete information, or the lawyer not inputting it correctly? Presumably it’s not a fault with the online calculator itself.
Either way, it’s not looking good for Rayner, who if she was any less politically important to Starmer would surely have gone by now. Some seem inclined to defend her, but despite her protestations we should keep in mind why this is such a major scandal for her and will probably end her career.
For one thing, she is a self-proclaimed socialist who is a senior Minister (of housing, no less) in a Government that has put raising taxes, including on property, and clamping down on tax dodging at the heart of its agenda. Despite this, she has clearly been engaging in tax avoidance. Aside from the culpable failure to understand that her ongoing interest in her son’s trust meant she was still deemed to own the house for tax purposes, she has also continued to designate her Ashton-under-Lyne home as her ‘primary residence’ to avoid paying council tax on her central London grace and favour flat. This is despite a similar scandal involving John Prescott in 2006 establishing that ministers’ grace and favour flats are their primary residence for council tax purposes – because it’s where they actually live.
In addition, putting the house into the son’s trust in the first place was almost certainly a device to avoid paying inheritance tax on it. Legal, of course, and even understandable – but also hypocritical for a ‘socialist’ Labour Housing Minister in a government clamping down on tax dodging and hiking property taxes.
There’s also of course the pointed hypocrisy in that Rayner has been a lead witch hunter against Tory rule breakers, including Nadhim Zahawi in 2023, calling his position “untenable” over a similar ‘inadvertent’ tax avoidance scandal.
Nadhim Zahawi’s story about his tax affairs doesn’t add up. After months of denials, the truth emerges.
His position is untenable. Rishi Sunak must dismiss him from his Cabinet.👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/ZD8ZzLgHHg
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) January 21, 2023
Now it’s her position that is untenable.
Featured image: The Telegraph
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