The appellants unsuccessfully contended that house and land transactions were partly residential and partly non-residential for the purposes of determining the stamp duty land tax thereon. 

Three separate appeals were made to the Upper Tribunal (UT) on the same point of law about the meaning and effect of FA 2003, s 116, which contained a definition of residential property. Each of the three cases (H, P and G) concerned the sale of a house together with an area of land.  

The issue in each case was whether all the land sold together with the house “[was] or form[ed] part of the garden or grounds of” the house. The rate of stamp duty land tax payable on the total consideration for each sale depended on the answer to that question. It was in the appellants’ interest to