My client is a company and is in the process of purchasing a large plot of farmland that has a farmhouse from a third party. The whole plot is £1.6m with around £600,000 attributable to the farmhouse and the remaining attributable to the commercial farmland. I understand that since the house is being occupied by a farm worker, the farming exemption applies such that the transaction is exempt from the 15% stamp duty land tax (SDLT) rules.

Given that the rest of the plot is farmland that is being used in a farming business, do we simply apply the non-residential rates of SDLT to the whole transaction or do we apply the residential rates to the farmhouse and the non-residential rates to the farmland?