Anna Barton, head of residential property at Sintons, looks at how yesterday’s Budget provided welcome news for many house buyers across the country.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a three-month extension to the existing Stamp Duty Holiday, which now means that buyers have until the end of June 2021 to complete their purchases and save up to £15,000 in Stamp Duty Land Tax.
Currently, the first £500,000 of the purchase price is exempt from Stamp Duty and this was due to expire on 31 March. Now the scheme will expire on 30 June but will be ‘phased out‘ by reducing the exempt level to £250,000 until 30 September 2021.
From 1 October, Stamp Duty will be payable at the usual rates, which means on properties priced at £125,000 and above for people purchasing or replacing their main residence, or over £40,000 for a second or subsequent properties.
Many people in the property industry feared a ‘cliff edge‘ after rates were returned to normal, so an online petition was started, intending to encourage the Chancellor to take action to prevent a potentially huge number of transactions falling apart if they didn’t meet the deadline. The petition was signed by more than 150,000 people, all of whom will be relieved by yesterday’s announcement.
The property market has undoubtedly exceeded our expectations during the pandemic and we are expecting to see more of the same for the foreseeable future.
