The appellants, James and Charlotte Averdieck, disputed a closure notice issued by HMRC concerning payments totalling £258,630 in SDLT based on the property being classed as residential.

On 28 August 2020, the appellants jointly purchased a property for £2.9m and filed an SDLT return of £258,630 on 4 September, based on the property being residential.

On 18 December 2020, however, the appellant's agent, Patrick Cannon, wrote to HMRC stating that having analysed the tax return they believed the property was ‘misclassified'.

Cannon said that the property should have been classed as ‘mixed use’ on the basis that the property shared a public footpath. As a result, they wished to amend the SDLT return and sought repayment of £119,180 with interest.

In