SDLT refund claims and Schedule 36 notices: what HMRC asks

Reclaiming Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is one of the few points in a house purchase where money flows back to the buyer. The most common claim — the refund of the higher-rate surcharge paid on an additional property — is not small change: at the £295,000 national median sale price for 2025 (HM Land Registry Price Paid, queried 3 July 2026), the 5% surcharge comes to £14,750. Above the median it is larger still: £20,000 on a £400,000 purchase, £25,000 on a £500,000 one.

A repayment of that size, made on the strength of a short online form, is exactly the kind of claim HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is entitled to check. When it decides to, the first document a claimant usually receives is not a rejection letter — it is an information notice issued under Schedule 36 of the Finance Act 2008. This guide explains what that notice can demand after an SDLT refund claim, the deadline that attaches to it, the route by which HMRC can go to your conveyancer instead of you, and what happens if you disagree.

Why a refund claim invites a closer look

The higher-rate refund route is set out in paragraph 3 of Schedule 4ZA, Finance Act 2003. A buyer who completes on a new main residence while still owning a previous one pays the surcharge, then reclaims it if the old home is sold within three years. The mechanics of that claim — the 36-month window and the 12-month deadline to lodge it — are covered in the additional-property surcharge refund route guide and the SDLT amendment and higher-rate refund process.

The critical feature for present purposes is this: the refund claim itself carries no evidence at the point of filing. HMRC's online repayment form asks for the two sale dates and the amount reclaimed; it does not require completion statements, occupation records or day-counts to be uploaded. The claim is paid, and the checking — if any — happens afterwards. HMRC retains the right to open an enquiry into the claim under Schedule 10 of the Finance Act 2003, and the Schedule 36 information notice is the tool it uses to gather the documents the form never asked for.

Three categories of SDLT claim tend to draw that scrutiny:

In each case the number claimed is documented; the facts that justify it are not. That gap is what a Schedule 36 notice is designed to close.

What a Schedule 36 notice can demand

Schedule 36 FA 2008 gives an HMRC officer power to issue a written notice requiring a person to produce documents or provide information that is "reasonably required" to check their tax position. A notice served on the claimant is a taxpayer notice (paragraph 1); a notice served on someone else — typically the conveyancer — is a third-party notice (paragraph 2).

After a higher-rate refund claim, a taxpayer notice will usually ask for some combination of:

• The completion statement and TR1 (or equivalent) for the sale of the previous main residence — the document that fixes the disposal date on which the whole three-year window turns.
• Evidence that the old property was genuinely a main residence rather than a let or second home: council tax bills, utility accounts, electoral-roll entries, or correspondence addressed to the buyer there.
• The completion statement for the new purchase, to confirm the effective date and the surcharge actually paid.
• For a non-resident refund, a schedule of UK presence with supporting travel or employment records.

A notice must be in writing, must specify what is required, and must set a deadline that is reasonable. It cannot demand documents that are not reasonably required to check the claim, and separate carve-outs protect legally privileged material and certain personal records — the detail of those limits is set out in HMRC's Compliance Handbook guidance on information notices.

The 30-day response window

Schedule 36 does not fix a single statutory deadline; it requires only that the officer allow a reasonable period. In practice, for SDLT claims that period is usually 30 days from the date of the notice, and it is stated on the notice itself. HMRC's compliance-check factsheet CC/FS2 accompanies the notice and sets out the taxpayer's obligations.

Missing or ignoring that deadline moves the process from information-gathering into penalties: an initial fixed charge, then a daily default charge for continued non-compliance. Those figures, and the "reasonable excuse" defence that can suspend them, are set out in the Schedule 36 information notice penalties guide. If the deadline is genuinely too tight — a completion file held by a firm that has since closed, for example — the officer can be asked to extend it before it expires, which is almost always easier than contesting a penalty afterwards.

When HMRC goes to your conveyancer instead

Much of the evidence behind an SDLT refund sits not with the buyer but with the solicitor or licensed conveyancer who handled both transactions. Schedule 36 lets HMRC approach them directly through a third-party notice under paragraph 2 — the mechanics of which are covered in the third-party notice guide.

A third-party notice carries stronger safeguards than a taxpayer notice. It generally requires either the agreement of the taxpayer or the approval of the First-tier Tribunal before it can be issued, and the taxpayer must normally be told a notice has been served and given a summary of the reasons — unless the Tribunal disapplies that step because notification would prejudice the check. The practical consequence is that a claimant may learn HMRC is testing their refund not from a letter to them, but from a call from their former conveyancer.

If you disagree: the appeal and Tribunal route

A taxpayer notice can be appealed. Under paragraph 29 of Schedule 36, the recipient has 30 days to appeal against the notice, or against any requirement in it, on grounds that include that the documents are not reasonably required or that complying would be unduly onerous. The 30-day appeal window guide walks through how that deadline is calculated and where claimants trip on it.

Two important limits apply. There is no right of appeal against a requirement to produce documents that form part of a person's statutory records — the core transactional paperwork behind an SDLT return typically falls here. And there is no appeal against a third-party notice that the Tribunal has already approved: the Tribunal has, by definition, already decided the notice is justified. Where an appeal is available, it goes first to review by HMRC and then, if unresolved, to the First-tier Tribunal (Tax).

The scale behind the scrutiny

The refund population is large. In 2025 there were 737,746 residential sales of houses and flats in England and Wales (HM Land Registry Price Paid, category A, queried 3 July 2026), with a median of £295,000 and a mean of £368,665. Almost all of them — 736,882, or 99.9% — were priced at or above the £40,000 floor at which the additional-property surcharge bites, so any of them bought as a second or replacement home before the first was sold could generate a higher-rate refund claim later.

At the median, that claim is worth £14,750. It is the combination of a large repayment and a documentless claim form that puts SDLT refunds squarely inside the Schedule 36 checking population — the same population, above the £125,000 nil-rate threshold, described in the SDLT enquiry window guide. A notice is not an accusation; it is HMRC asking to see the paperwork that the claim asserted but never showed.

Before you claim, and before you respond

You can see the surcharge a refund is built on using the stamp duty calculator, which sets out the higher-rate SDLT on an additional property at any price, or browse the wider cost-intelligence guides for how the surcharge and its reliefs interact.

This is general information about how the SDLT compliance process works, not tax or legal advice, and it does not tell you whether a claim will succeed or how to respond to any particular notice. The rules turn on the exact dates and documents in an individual transaction. Speak to a qualified adviser — a solicitor, licensed conveyancer or chartered tax adviser — before acting.