Understanding “Purchaser” in Shared Ownership Trusts for SDLT Purposes

Who is the purchaser for SDLT in a shared ownership trust?

In a shared ownership trust, HMRC says the purchaser for SDLT is the person, or people, who have exclusive use of the property under the trust terms. This is a specific rule for shared ownership arrangements, so you should check the trust deed carefully rather than assume the purchaser is the social landlord, trustee, legal owner, or another beneficiary.

• The key SDLT question is who has the right to exclusive use of the home under the trust.
• The social landlord is not treated as the purchaser just because it is involved in the arrangement.
• Another beneficiary is not the purchaser unless the trust terms give them exclusive use of the property.
• The trust deed and related shared ownership documents are the main evidence for deciding who the purchaser is.
• If exclusive use is shared, limited, or unclear, the position may be harder to assess and needs careful review of the legal documents.

Scroll down for the full analysis.

Who counts as the “purchaser” under a shared ownership trust for SDLT?

This page explains a narrow but important SDLT point in shared ownership trust arrangements. The issue is who is treated as the “purchaser” for stamp duty land tax purposes. That matters because SDLT charges, returns and reliefs depend on identifying the correct purchaser. The official HMRC material says that, in a shared ownership trust, the purchaser is the person who has exclusive use of the trust property under the trust terms, not the social landlord or another beneficiary of the trust.

What this rule is about

Shared ownership arrangements can involve trusts as part of the legal structure. In those cases, the legal owner, the beneficial interests, and the person actually occupying the property may not all be the same person. SDLT still needs a clear answer to a basic question: who is buying the property, or the relevant interest in it, for tax purposes?

The point addressed here is not a general definition for every trust case. It is a specific rule for a shared ownership trust within the SDLT provisions on right to buy transactions and shared ownership leases.

What the official source says

HMRC’s SDLT manual states that, for SDLT purposes, the purchaser under a shared ownership trust is the person, or persons, who under the terms of the trust have exclusive use of the trust property. HMRC also makes clear who is not treated as the purchaser in this context: the social landlord and any other beneficiary of the trust.

So the focus is on the person entitled to exclusive use of the property under the trust arrangement. That person is treated as the purchaser even if another party, such as a social landlord, has a legal or beneficial role in the structure.

What this means in practice

In practice, SDLT analysis should not stop at asking who is named as landlord, trustee, or beneficiary. In a shared ownership trust, the key question is who has the right to exclusive use of the home under the trust terms.

If one individual, or a couple, is given exclusive occupation or use under the trust, HMRC’s stated view is that they are the purchaser for SDLT purposes. The social landlord is not treated as the purchaser simply because it remains involved in the arrangement. Nor is another beneficiary treated as the purchaser merely because they have an interest under the trust.

This matters because the identity of the purchaser affects how the transaction is reported and how the SDLT rules are applied to that person. It may also affect how the wider shared ownership provisions operate in the particular transaction.

How to analyse it

A sensible way to approach this issue is:

• Confirm that the arrangement is a shared ownership trust within the relevant SDLT context.
• Read the trust terms carefully.
• Identify who is entitled to exclusive use of the trust property.
• Check whether that right belongs to one person or more than one person.
• Do not assume that the legal owner, trustee, social landlord, or another beneficiary is the purchaser unless the trust terms also give them the exclusive use that HMRC refers to.

The central factual question is not simply who holds rights in the abstract, but who under the trust terms has exclusive use of the property itself.

Example

Illustration: a shared ownership trust is set up over a flat. A housing association remains involved in the structure and another person has a beneficial interest under the trust. But the trust terms state that Ms A has the right to exclusive use of the flat as her home. On HMRC’s approach, Ms A is the purchaser for SDLT purposes. The housing association is not the purchaser merely because it is the social landlord, and the other beneficiary is not the purchaser merely because they are a beneficiary.

Why this can be difficult in practice

The official text is brief, so the main difficulty is usually factual rather than theoretical. Trust arrangements can be drafted in a complicated way, and the person with economic rights, the person with legal title, and the person with day-to-day occupation may not obviously be the same.

Another difficulty is that the phrase “exclusive use” depends on the actual trust terms. If the rights of occupation or use are limited, shared, conditional, or split between people, the analysis may not be straightforward. The source material does not set out a fuller test for borderline cases, so careful reading of the trust deed and the surrounding shared ownership documentation may be needed.

It is also important not to treat HMRC manual wording as if it were the legislation itself. The manual explains HMRC’s view of how the SDLT rules apply in this type of case. In most straightforward cases that may be enough to identify the purchaser, but difficult cases still turn on the legal documents and the statutory framework.

Key takeaways

• In a shared ownership trust, the SDLT purchaser is the person who has exclusive use of the property under the trust terms.
• The social landlord is not treated as the purchaser just because it is part of the arrangement.
• The trust deed and the rights it gives over occupation and use are the starting point for the SDLT analysis.

This page was last updated on 24 March 2026

Useful article? You may find it helpful to read the original guidance here: Understanding “Purchaser” in Shared Ownership Trusts for SDLT Purposes

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