Your property questions answered.

Will my sister and I have to pay stamp duty?

Our parents are giving me and my sister a site - the idea is that we will build houses for ourselves. We both live in Dublin and certainly my intention is to move home (to Westmeath) as soon as my house is built. My understanding is that the transfer of property from a parent to a child means that we will have to pay stamp duty at half the usual rate. Do we pay that when the site has planning or before - as the value of the site will differ enormously.

• The stamp duty break you are talking about applies when a parent sells a house (not a site) to a child and then stamp duty is charged at half the relevant rate. It doesn't only apply to a parent/child relationship - other relationships also qualify, e.g step-parent, child, brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister, aunt, uncle, niece or nephew (for more information see www.citizensinformation.ie).

Stamp duty and capital gains tax do not apply where a parent transfers a site to a child. The site must be for the construction of the child's principal private residence and the market value of the site must not be greater than €253,947.62. A parent can only transfer one site to each child to take advantage of this exemption. If the child then sells the site without the principal private residence being built and lived in for three years, there will be a clawback of the capital gains tax relief permitted. So you and your sister need to think about your timeframes quite carefully - to make sure that you are ready to build and move within the timeframe.

I don't owe charges on apartment I just bought

I bought an apartment in October of last year and got a statement from the management company saying that I owe the service charges for 2006 as well as part of 2005. This comes close to just over €2,000. I absolutely refuse to pay this as clearly I did not own this apartment at the time. The management company say that it is nothing to do with them and that it is a bill that must be paid.

It certainly is a bill and it does need to be paid - but not by you. This is not such an unusual problem, but it's one that should be fairly easy to sort out. The problem of previous owners not paying management fees is one that buyers should be aware of. As part of the conveyancing process, your solicitor should have ensured that the vendor was up to date in terms of management payments. It appears that there was an oversight and it's up to your solicitor to sort it out.

Forward the demands to your solicitor and get him or her to sort it out. Contact the management company saying that the matter is in the hands of your solicitor and ask them to send you a new invoice that covers only from the date you moved in in October.

• Send your queries to Property Questions, The Irish Times, The Irish Times Building, 24-28 Tara Street, Dublin 2 or email propertyquestions@irish-times.ie. Unfortunately, it is not possible to respond to all questions. The above is a representative sample of queries received. This column is a readers' service and is not intended to replace professional advice. No individual correspondence will be entered into.