Thanks for your advice Paul. We did get legal advice, and even though he pointed out some very useful things in the contract, he made no mention of the transfer duty needing to be paid right now. I will contact one of the solicitors you suggested and find out if it is worth appealing or would it be cheaper to try and pay it off and claim it back later which seems counter productive and only serves to make the government more money in interest since we cannot afford to pay it outright.

Regards
Geoff Taylor