No extension to stamp duty holiday
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has chosen not to extend the stamp duty holiday, which comes to an end on 31st December, despite hopes that the UK’s housing market would be buoyed by a further concession on the tax.
From 1st January, the duty becomes payable at 1% on properties worth between £125,000 and £175,000, with the previous £175,000 threshold having helped an estimated 240,000 home buyers, according to Alistair Darling’s pre-Budget report.
Last month, Zoopla.co.uk claimed that far fewer home buyers had benefited from the stamp duty holiday than ministers had hoped.
Research from the property portal indicated that only 115,447 home buyers took advantage of the tax break during the first year, saving £173 million in total, compared to a Government forecast of £600 million.
In related news, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) recently reported that the impact of the reintroduction of the lower threshold will vary from region to region.
RICS members in the West and East Midlands, Wales and Scotland are expecting housing market activity to decline, while in London and the South East no falls in transactions are anticipated as average house prices are already well above the £125,000 mark.
Surveyors in the North of England are in agreement, but in this case because the average price of a home is well below the threshold, at £116,051.
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