Buying an apartment at an undervalued price risks and consequences

The seller offers to informally lower the cost of the apartment. Is it worth taking the risk? In fact, it does not matter why the seller wants to reduce the value of the property. Although, as a rule, this is a desire to save on personal income tax or hide income. The main thing is that the buyer should always take into account the risks and long-term consequences when making such a decision.

It must be remembered that the property deduction applies only to the official part of the expenses when buying real estate. Accordingly, if the spouses, buying the first apartment, indicate an understated cost, then they receive a deduction from it. By the way, within the framework of millions of payments, these are significant amounts. For example, deductions for two from the purchase of a first home for 5 million are approximately equal to 520 thousand rubles, and for an apartment worth 3 million you can get 390 thousand rubles.

It happens that the buyer decides to sell such housing earlier than the minimum period of ownership of real estate expires, then personal income tax will be charged to him based on the difference between the sale price and the purchase price specified in the contract. Thus, there is a risk of getting an increased personal income tax.

Also, if such a transaction is invalidated, and the buyer is required to return the apartment to the rightful owner, he can only count on the amount specified in the contract of sale.