Angela Rayner used a small, high-street conveyancing firm for the purchase of the £800,000 Hove flat at the centre of a damaging tax row, the Guardian has learned.
The deputy prime minister employed Verrico & Associates, a family firm based in Herne Bay, Kent, to complete the transaction, according to legal documents seen by the Guardian.
Rayner has said she asked for legal advice before buying the flat in Hove, West Sussex, based on which she mistakenly paid the lower rate of stamp duty, believed to be about £30,000. She said on Wednesday, however, that she had subsequently taken advice from a senior barrister, which made her realise she had underpaid.
The controversy has put Rayner’s political career in the balance and she is facing a series of questions about what advice she took before underpaying stamp duty by tens of thousands of pounds.
Rayner believed she owed the lower amount of stamp duty because she did not own any other property. However, her family home in Greater Manchester is owned by a trust in the name of her son, meaning that for stamp duty purposes it counts as her property.
Rayner, who is also the housing secretary, has refused to say which firms she consulted before the Hove transaction, although she is understood to have consulted Verrico and two experts in trust law. The barrister who gave the later advice is reported to have been Jonathan Peacock, a tax specialist who has been a king’s counsel for nearly 25 years.
The Guardian has seen the document filed with the Land Registry to apply to change the name on the deed to the Hove flat. The document was filed by Verrico, under a reference that includes Rayner’s name.
Neither Verrico nor advisers to Rayner responded to requests for comment.
According to its website, Verrico is a family firm run by Joanna Verrico and her three daughters. The firm lists four directors and two legal secretaries as members of staff.
Experts have said that small, high-street law firms offering general legal services may not have the expertise to deal with the complex piece of law that determines the ownership of properties held in trust. It is not yet known who Rayner relied on for advice on the trust.
Downing Street said on Thursday: “The final legal opinion was received by the deputy prime minister on Wednesday morning, at which point she immediately took steps to refer herself to the independent adviser, and begin the process of engaging with HMRC.”
It is understood she commissioned Peacock last Friday and received a draft opinion on Monday, while the prime minister was still insisting she had done nothing wrong.
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She received the final opinion on Wednesday, after which she disclosed to the Guardian she had underpaid stamp duty and would be referring herself to Laurie Magnus, the prime minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards.
Magnus will submit his report as soon as tomorrow, with its outcome likely to determine the deputy prime minister’s political fate.
Rayner received backing on Thursday morning from the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who said: “I have full confidence in Angela Rayner. She’s a good friend and a colleague. She has accepted the right stamp duty wasn’t paid. That was an error, that was a mistake. She is working hard now to rectify that, in contact with HMRC, to make sure that the correct tax is paid.”
On Wednesday night, Rayner’s Hove flat was vandalised with graffiti saying “tax evader”, an act her spokesperson called “unjustifiable and beyond the pale”.
