Budget 2010: Stamp duty threshold raised to £250,000 for first time buyers

CloudCuckooLand

No. If you want to apply on your own, your income would have to be sufficient. As it is not, you need the second income, so the second name appears on the mortgage and deeds - nothing to do with Stamp Duty - the Lender needs to keep both names on the paperwork to protect their positon.

sportley

Thanks. I thought as much.. but was just trying to think of a loop-hole! I can't imagine that there's going to be that many people who are actually going to be in a position to take advantage of this given the strictness of the FTB definition!?

RX-78

Pincher wrote: »

Wasn't the stamp duty baseline £125,000? Below which there was no stamp duty any way?

So they are trying to help a First Time Buyer who can afford a £125,001 to £249,999 house? Assuming 90% LTV, the loan is at least £112,500 , so the salary needs to be £32,143 at 3.5 times income multiple.

I think it's a ruse to sound generous, then disqualify most of the transactions because they are not FTB.

I agree. Dont forget in certain re-development areas tax exempt is upto the value of 150k.

On 249,999 house, 90% LTV would be 224,999. On 3.5 multiplier the net has to be 64285. Now does the labour believe people at the bottom of the ladder is earning 64285 squids net??

This is an eye candy but in reality aimed at helping those that can earn ￡32,143-￡64,285 net and have atleast 12.5-25k deposit in their bank. Surely they would have been better off if they had scheme that helped to put deposit toward (e.g. government to contribute 1% of the property to go towards deposit) buying a house for sub ￡150k property for low income FTB?? After all, I thought the sub group they are trying to help are low income FTB who struggle to find ever increasing required deposit??

Dinah93

No scheme is going to help everyone, but this is definately going to help some people. If the budget is so tight this is the difference between buying a house or not, then honestly it can't be afforded anyway. However we are a 24/25 year old couple earning £44,000 between us, buying a house for £156,000 with a £28,000 deposit (saved up, its perfectly possible) never having previously owned, so we are exactly the people this will benefit. We're also forking out £20,000 on a wedding and honeymoon this year, so had made the decision not to replace the bathroom before moving in, now we are about halfway there, which is a great bonus for us.

RX-78

Congratulation! I hope everything goes to plan - uts hard enough having to do one thing but to do both wedding & buying house must be really stressful. I've already pulled all my hairs out and thats just buying & selling the house!

I might be wrong but I thought whole point of this tax relief was to increase buying incentive & help those that otherwise cant afford it. As you said, if such small (max of 2.5k relief) is crucial, they probably cant afford the property. So who is this tax relief designed to help? I think it will end up helping those that are well off enough to afford it anyway and therefore have very little effect on housing market/economy.

Once again politicians have gone for popular choice. Has election got something with it.....?

pault123

Dinah93 wrote: »

No scheme is going to help everyone, but this is definately going to help some people. If the budget is so tight this is the difference between buying a house or not, then honestly it can't be afforded anyway. However we are a 24/25 year old couple earning £44,000 between us, buying a house for £156,000 with a £28,000 deposit (saved up, its perfectly possible) never having previously owned, so we are exactly the people this will benefit. We're also forking out £20,000 on a wedding and honeymoon this year, so had made the decision not to replace the bathroom before moving in, now we are about halfway there, which is a great bonus for us.

£20,000 for the wedding!

If you put that towards the house deposit, how much would you save in interest over the term of the mortgage - along with being better off each month :money:

RX-78

Funny you shoud said that. One of our friend who had an expensive wedding only last year is now struggling to get a mortgage due to small deposit and being over drawn. And her husband is an IFA (guess he couldn't stop her spending!).

But, you can only have one wedding so its a difficult one!

BellaT81

RX-78 wrote: »

Congratulation! I hope everything goes to plan - uts hard enough having to do one thing but to do both wedding & buying house must be really stressful. I've already pulled all my hairs out and thats just buying & selling the house!

I might be wrong but I thought whole point of this tax relief was to increase buying incentive & help those that otherwise cant afford it. As you said, if such small (max of 2.5k relief) is crucial, they probably cant afford the property. So who is this tax relief designed to help? I think it will end up helping those that are well off enough to afford it anyway and therefore have very little effect on housing market/economy.

Once again politicians have gone for popular choice. Has election got something with it.....?

It may not help many people who are struggling to afford a house, but I think what they are hoping is that it will encourage some of those people who CAN afford it but are hesitating to buy due to the market conditions. With the average property in the UK going for under £250,000, there is an argument that this would be the group most influenced by a tax relief.

Dinah93

pault123 wrote: »

£20,000 for the wedding!

If you put that towards the house deposit, how much would you save in interest over the term of the mortgage - along with being better off each month :money:

£12,000 for the wedding
£6000 for the honeymoon
£2000 honeymoon spending money
MSE isn't just about pinching every penny but spending what you can afford, and we only plan on having one wedding so we might as well have exactly what we want. He always wanted a huge family wedding, I always wanted a luxurious 3 week honeymoon in a water villa so we can go diving in the Maldives and a week in Dubai, so that's what we've got. We can afford it, we're not getting into debt over it, so why not?

The morgage is 1/4 of our take home pay, our budget leaves £420 a month free for overpayments on current wages, and my H2B has been told to expect another £4k promotion by the end of the year, which will up this even further. Plus I make £300-£600 extra income aside from our wages every month which can go into overpayments or saving up a decent emergency fund, in all I'm happy that we certainly won't be paying out for 25 years, and the extra interest is well worth it for us to not have to compromise on the wedding and honeymoon.

I've been thinking about this and I suppose it might tempt some people into buying earlier than they were otherwise planning, who could afford it anyway. I saw a newspaper article slating the move and that the government should make it a sort of funded grant instead to give people a deposit... the whole point of deposits being a minimum of 10% is that you prove you have disposable income enough to save and therefore are more likely to be able to afford the house if things are so tight you can't afford to save that's unfortunate, but house owning isn't a right it's a luxury, and having a deposit gives you, and the bank, a buffer against the nightmare that is negative equity.

ezee_duzit

sportley wrote: »

I am currently in the process of buying a property with my girlfriend. I am a first time buyer, but under the terms, my girlfriend is technically not (even though she's currently renting) as she has previously owned a property. We have a joint mortgage with HSBC. Is it possible for the property purchase to be completed in my name only in order to benefit from the stamp duty holiday, while the mortgage secured on the property is in both of our names? I couldn't get the £180k mortgage on my salary alone.

Hi, I am in the same position as I have owned a property before but my girlfriend hasn't. We have just taken a mortgage with HSBC and have been told that they will allow two people to be named on the mortgage taking both our earnings into consideration but only having one of us named on the deeds, this being my FTB girlfriend. I have spoken with solicior and he sees no problem and then approx £200-300 to change the title deeds later on. Obviously there is risk with this but could well save us £1350!! Has anyone else done something similar??

Thanks