Land Transaction Tax and Anti-avoidance of Devolved Taxes (Wales) Act 2017 Schedule 6 paragraph 6

Series of linked leases treated as a single lease

Schedule 6 paragraph 6 sets out how a series of linked leases of the same or substantially the same premises are treated as a single lease for land transaction tax purposes.

• Where successive leases of the same (or substantially the same) premises are linked transactions, they form a "series of linked leases" and are treated as one single lease.
• The single lease is treated as having been granted at the date of the first lease in the series, with a term equal to the combined terms of all the leases and rent equal to the total rent payable under all of them.
• The grant of any later lease in the series is disregarded for land transaction tax purposes, except that a return (or further return) must still be filed to reflect the later linked transaction.
• This aggregation rule prevents the splitting of what is effectively a continuing occupation into separate leases to reduce the tax liability.