Angiebabes, on the first & second transaction the developer paid any capital gains & my companies accounts checked this out with HMRC, also I have since had a dispute with HMRC over company pension tax manly because 2 governments departments would not talk to each other, after sending them the documents that we had paid the tax, they sent us a full apology.
On the second property yes we had to pay the 3% retention which our lady agreed a fee of £4170.00.
Not everything is black & white over there, our friends sold one of their apartments & found out they had not paid any ebe tax for 18 years, but the government were only allowed to claim back the last 5 years, we were also told by a resident many years ago, never pay the government tax unless you are sure you owe it because you will never get it back.