In response to the letter from Peter Bolton regarding SDLT8 forms returned from the stamp office (see [2005] Gazette, 27 January, 15).


We have received in total around five of these forms back from the three different stamp offices - Edinburgh, Newcastle and Bristol. We did, finally, manage to speak to a senior officer at the SDLT office who informed us that they were having problems with their scanners which were, in fact, missing information already inserted in the SDLTI forms and reading other information which was not on the forms at all.


As Mr Bolton points out, the whole system is unfair as we can be fined for the late delivery of these forms but we have no route of complaint regarding the inefficiency of the scanners installed. The best suggestion would appear to be to write in numbers to the local SDLT office to register our complaints.


Janet Davies, Booth Ince & Knowles, Hyde, Cheshire