"Usama Virk... A+"

I couldn't recommend Usama Virk from Cornerstone anymore highly! He was great - very understandable, efficient and professional. He understood my unique position and was able to assist, saving me money. Thank you Usama!

"Needed advice on SDLT the service was…"

Needed advice on SDLT the service was fast efficient would recommend

"The worst decision in my life"

The worst decision in my life. I was introduced to Cornerstone by my financial advisor. Based on the reviews and recomendations I decided to proceed with some tax planning. The cost of this was £10,000. This "planning" was recently classed as tax avoidance by HMRC and as a result I have had to pay tens of thousands of pounds in tax owed, interest and penalties. This experience has caused huge emotional and financial distress to me and my family. It has affected me, my wife and our children and we still may lose our home. This in-turn resulted in a serious mental health episode and nearly ended a 20 year relationship. We still have HMRC chasing and the stress, at times, is unbearable. Cornerstone have been utterly shameless and offered zero support or advice. They have not been proactive in their communication or offered any refund of their exorbitant fee. If you want to destroy your life and financial stability then go ahead and use Cornerstone, but let this serve as a warning so you know what you are getting into.

"Following the failure of a stamp duty…"

Following the failure of a stamp duty land tax scheme (as notified by CTA) I am now being ignored. Emails sent in March, April, June, September and now October along with telephone messages have received no response. At the moment I'm c£10,000 out of pocket due to fees and interest.

"SDLT - Tax advise"

helpful and kind

"Positive, and effective assistance…"

Our experience has been a very positive one, the responses we had to our many queries were quick and the advice we had from our appointed advisor, Ashahana Anuraj, were well thought out, friendly and helpful.

"Outstanding service"

Outstanding service, patient, detailed oriented, polite. Pleasure to deal with!

"Very caring"

From 1st contact we were made to feel at ease the whole process was helped with good information and communication.

"Claim guys have been amazing"

Claim guys have been amazing

"Avoid at all costs this company, and their sister company Goldstone"

I was advised to use Cornerstone Tax in 2017 when I purchased my flat for SDLT planning. At the beginning, they seemed to be a professional company, but now HMRC have caught up with the scheme they sold me and they have been completely useful in defending what they had told me to be sound tax advice. This has cost me a lot of money. I recently had to pay nearly £69,000 to HMRC which included the stamp duty, and the interest accrued. This means including the fee paid to Cornerstone, and the tax on the annuity arrangement, this has cost me around £30,000 extra to what I should have paid from the offset, which in hindsight (which is of course a wonderful thing), should have been the course of action. I didn't know at the time, was given poor advice and didn't reflect enough on something that would cost me dearly. Please, if you are reading this review, save yourself the heartache so you don't need to be kicking yourself and thinking 'in hindsight' - this is what trustpilot is set up to do i.e. help consumers navigate companies and aid decision-making. Of course at the beginning they're going to be helpful because they want your money but trust me, after paying over £20K for their services, they've really not delivered and ended up costing me a lot. Of course, they will point out there are caveats to their advice which there are so let those caveats in themselves be a huge red flag. The caveats are there so that when it all falls apart (which is always does because HMRC will catch up on you), they won't come through. I have no motive to write this review but to help others not fall into the same trap because my money is irretrievable now and Cornerstone have already made me sign over the case to their sister company Goldstone, probably so that they can't be held accountable even though I have all the the emails and documents which provide evidence for this saga.
Addendum to review since the Cornerstone reply:
Cornerstone has replied (see below) and in this message Cornerstone say they didn't handle this scheme which is untrue because I have the emails and documentation to prove that from 2017-2022, the scheme was handled by Cornerstone. It was only when HMRC started pushing on their investigation end of 2022 that they told me to sign a letter of authority to allow their sister company Goldstone to handle it. Please don't try and twist the details in order to mislead other customers - it really don't serve you very well as being a trustworthy company. Again, if you need proof of all of this. I have it and have since supplied my full name, mobile and details of the scheme for you to cross reference. To be crystal clear, in 2017 I paid Cornerstone £21,600 for SDLT planning.