A buyer who completes on a new main home before selling their old one pays a higher-rate surcharge on the whole price — and gets it back in full if the old home sells within the deadline. Run the same purchase price through England's Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT), Wales's Land Transaction Tax (LTT) and Scotland's Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT), and two of the three refund cheques come back identical. The third is a third bigger again — not because Scotland's property market is pricier, but because its surcharge rate is a flat three percentage points higher than the other two nations.
The refund, price by price
England and Wales both charge the higher-rate surcharge as a flat 5% of the whole purchase price. Scotland's Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS) charges 8%. Because all three surcharges apply from the first pound — with no nil-rate band of their own — the refund on selling the old home works out to exactly that percentage of the purchase price, at every price point:
| Purchase price | England refund (SDLT) | Wales refund (LTT) | Scotland refund (LBTT ADS) |
|---|---|---|---|
| £150,000 | £7,500 | £7,500 | £12,000 |
| £225,000 | £11,250 | £11,250 | £18,000 |
| £300,000 | £15,000 | £15,000 | £24,000 |
| £400,000 | £20,000 | £20,000 | £32,000 |
| £500,000 | £25,000 | £25,000 | £40,000 |
| £750,000 | £37,500 | £37,500 | £60,000 |
| £1,000,000 | £50,000 | £50,000 | £80,000 |
Figures calculated as the difference between the additional-property and standard-rate totals from Homecost's stamp duty, Land Transaction Tax and Land and Buildings Transaction Tax calculators, at current 2026 rates, fetched 7 September 2026.
The England/Wales match isn't a coincidence of these particular prices — both regimes apply their surcharge as a flat 5 percentage points on top of every band of the standard schedule, a mechanism Homecost has verified separately holds at every price from £150,000 to £1,000,000. Scotland runs the identical flat-percentage mechanism, just at a genuinely higher rate — not a formula quirk, a real 60% larger surcharge.
Why Scotland's number runs bigger
It would be easy to assume Scotland's bigger refund is just a side-effect of Scottish LBTT having different standard-rate bands. It isn't. Homecost's comparison of the three surcharges found the ADS gap over England widens from £4,100 at £150,000 to £64,600 at £1,000,000, purely because 8% of a bigger number is a bigger gap than 5% of the same number. The refund is the mirror image of that same surcharge — whatever was charged going in on a genuine second home is what comes back out once the old one sells, in all three nations.
This isn't only a landlord calculation. The higher rate — and therefore the refund — applies to anyone who completes on a new main residence while still owning a previous one, including home movers caught in a broken chain, not just buy-to-let purchases.
A worked example
Three buyers each complete on a £300,000 main home while still owning their previous one — in Leeds, Newport, and a Scottish local authority. All three pay the higher rate at completion: £20,000 total tax in Leeds, £19,500 in Newport, £28,600 in Scotland, reflecting each nation's own standard-rate bands as well as the surcharge. All three sell their old home within the required window. The Leeds and Newport buyers each get back £15,000 — an identical cheque despite being in different countries with different tax authorities. The Scottish buyer gets back £24,000, £9,000 more, purely because Scotland's surcharge rate sits eight points above the standard rate rather than five.
The process still differs by nation
The size of the refund is now a clean, provable number in all three nations. The process for actually claiming it is not identical, and Homecost has covered the England-Wales comparison — deadlines, evidence and administering body — in detail separately. Scotland's claim runs through Revenue Scotland rather than HMRC or the Welsh Revenue Authority, under its own forms and timetable. Revenue Scotland's own published guidance is the only reliable source for current deadlines and evidence requirements, and it is worth checking directly before relying on any older summary, since guidance is updated from time to time.
Try it yourself
Homecost's stamp duty calculator runs the standard-rate and higher-rate figures side by side for England, Wales or Scotland at any price, and the True Cost tool breaks down a specific postcode's full buying costs. For the exact price at which each pair of nations' standard rates cross over, see Homecost's SDLT vs LTT vs LBTT crossover guide. More UK property tax guides are on the Homecost blog.
Based on Homecost's analysis of published 2026 SDLT, LTT and LBTT rate schedules, cross-checked against Homecost's own calculators. HM Land Registry price-paid data, which underpins most of Homecost's cost analysis, does not cover the Scottish property market, so Scotland's figures here are drawn from the published tax rates alone rather than transaction volumes.
This is general information about how the three refund calculations compare, not advice on an individual claim. Ownership structure, evidence available and the specific selling timeline can all affect the outcome of a real claim. Speak to a qualified conveyancer or tax adviser before submitting one.