Corporate & Commercial

Ferbrache & Farrell LLP’s corporate department offers full service corporate, banking and commercial cover and is able to advise on all aspects of Guernsey corporate and commercial law, including banking and finance, regulatory, investment funds, asset management and listings on The International Stock Exchange (TISE).

Latest Insight
12 December 2024
Insight
Our UKRE team has devised some handy tips for first-time buyers to help navigate the property market: 1. Understand your budget: Calculate affordability: determine how much…
Dispute Resolution

The dispute resolution department at Ferbrache & Farrell LLP has vast experience of local and international litigation and dispute resolution generally, gained from acting in complex local and international high-value disputes, both in Guernsey and throughout the world.

Latest Insight
12 December 2024
Insight
Our UKRE team has devised some handy tips for first-time buyers to help navigate the property market: 1. Understand your budget: Calculate affordability: determine how much…
Property

The Guernsey property department is dedicated to providing tailored solutions that meet and exceed clients’ expectations. In addition, the property department provides support to colleagues in the corporate and dispute resolution departments on real estate-related technical points of law.

Latest Insight
12 December 2024
Insight
Our UKRE team has devised some handy tips for first-time buyers to help navigate the property market: 1. Understand your budget: Calculate affordability: determine how much…
UK Real Estate

We are delighted to help in relation to providing legal advice for real estate in England and Wales. We listen. We learn what your needs are. We proactively respond. Whether it’s personal or commercial property, we always provide sound and pragmatic advice, adding value to the transaction.

Latest Insight
12 December 2024
Insight
Our UKRE team has devised some handy tips for first-time buyers to help navigate the property market: 1. Understand your budget: Calculate affordability: determine how much…
Private Client

Our services for private client matters include the drafting of realty and personalty wills, acting as professional executors, and assisting foreign lawyers who have requirements in this jurisdiction.

Latest Insight
12 December 2024
Insight
Our UKRE team has devised some handy tips for first-time buyers to help navigate the property market: 1. Understand your budget: Calculate affordability: determine how much…

On the face of it, this might sound like a very simple question, and with an obvious answer. 

To a buyer, contents are things like carpets, curtains and white goods and are important to the use and enjoyment of a property. To a Guernsey conveyancer and our Treasury, contents are the trigger for a separate thought process.  Why is that?

In fact, it goes back to an old Ordonnance in 1852, and which is called the Ordonnance des Biens Meubles et Immeubles 1852

Most recently, contents play a very important part of the new Document Duty regime and which came into force on 15 November this year; more on that below.

The governing piece of secondary legislation of 1852 is still important today.  It made an important distinction between “immeubles”, literally translated as ‘immovables’ and what we consider as realty (being the land and things forming part of the land, such as pipes for services and buildings), and “meubles”.  That word translates as ‘movables’ or personalty, and (very) loosely equates to what most of us would consider as ‘contents’.  The Ordonnance treated meubles as those things which could be removed from one place to another, either of its own volition (e.g. a horse), or by physically being moved (e.g. a dress, or silver in those days).

Perhaps for exploring in depth in another article, in 1852 some things that we would now think of as contents, were in fact treated as forming part of the land itself, for they were so important to the home.  They included the kitchen table, the shutters on the windows, tools used in workshops and even the manure heap!  In 2017, a fitted kitchen might well be considered not as contents, but forming an integral part of the building and thus the land itself.

However, back to the point. At its simplest, no document duty is paid on the value of personalty.  Document Duty is actually levied on the value of realty. 

When an offer is made and accepted for the purchase of property, a Guernsey estate agent will prepare Conditions of Sale.  In those Conditions, there will be a split between the value of the realty (until recently generally 95% of the purchase price) and the value of personalty (the remaining 5%).

The new Document Duty regime now requires sellers and buyers to declare before the Royal Court (in the property Conveyance) that the value of the realty, and therefore the value of the contents, is correct. It is very important, since a false declaration may be construed as an attempt to avoid the payment of Document Duty, which is a criminal offence.

The starting point, since 15 November, is that contents are going to be treated as representing 2.5% of the property price.  If it is the case that the contents are worth more, then a buyer’s Document Duty bill will slightly reduce, but conversely, if the contents are worth less than 2.5% of the purchase price, then a buyer’s Document Duty obligation will increase.  Some Advocates may take the view that it is safest that no value is attributed to personalty, so their clients do not innocently and unwittingly make a false declaration.  As the process is relatively new, no doubt greater clarity in practice will emerge.

In conclusion then, what may seem like a straightforward question, is actually more complicated.