How much do you know about the one holiday that requires no vaccine or quarantine?
After Wednesday the 30th June there will no longer be a holiday on the Stamp Duty paid by purchasers’ of properties up to £500,000. This holiday has fuelled a very busy market in recent months and for better or worse, kept the property market bubbling along.
The Stamp Duty Holiday facts
There will be a tapering off of Stamp Duty tax - from the 1st of July until the 30th September. If you are buying a property you will not pay any Stamp Duty on the first £250,000 of the property’s value, (unless it is a second home). This will then return to the pre-Covid figure of £125,000 on 1st October 2021.
In our Journal post we look at what the end of this holiday means for the property market and what you need to consider if you are looking to move in the near future, if you are a first-time buyer or have purchased homes before.
At Trend & Thomas we think this will actually bode well. The market has been overwhelmingly busy at times in the previous months and with the Stamp Duty Holiday easing, we anticipate things will settle a little and remove the pressure buyers and sellers have been under.
No longer will sellers be rushing to place their property on the market in time for the deadline and no longer will buyers be rushing their buying decisions.
We hope this will bring a little more stability to the market and although there is still lots of demand for people to move homes, we are hoping the intensity will have reduced and people will be able to make their moves in a timeframe that suits them.
We like to say that we aim to obtain the best price, for the least amount of stress in a time frame that suits our clients. Here’s to that!
If you would like to check the Stamp Duty due on your purchase our Stamp Duty calculator works for whichever deadline you will complete within – try it here
What will it mean for first-time buyers
Since 2017 first-time buyers paying £300,000 or less for a residential property paid no stamp duty. When stamp duty relief up to £500,000 was introduced in 2020, this meant the first-time buyer exemption had no practical effect. First-time buyers pay 0% on the first £300,000 and 5% on the remainder up to the value of £500,000. There is no first-time buyer relief on properties above £500,000. To qualify as a first-time buyer, you must never have owned or had an interest in a residential property in the UK or overseas.
Market experts have predicted a mixture of effects for the future of the industry but with low mortgage rates plus the Government’s recent mortgage guarantee scheme we don’t expect the effect to be marked. Nationwide’s Chief Economist Robert Gardner says, ‘Our research suggests that while the stamp duty holiday is impacting the timing of housing transactions, for most people, it is not the key motivating factor prompting them to move in the first place.’
We would agree with this and still expect to see a strong desire to move after an unsettled year, changing circumstances, a desire to ensure we are living the life we want and pent up demand.
If you would like further information about Stamp Duty and how it might affect your move please do email us or call on Ph 01923 773 616.
