Stamp Duty Question

dphood

Hi,

I'm new to the forum, I've currently bought a place and paid out the stamp duty as it was over the £175,000 threshold. I believe that they have raised a threshold to £250,000. As a first time buyer it would be nice that I could start to do the place up. Is there a way that I can obtain this money back as it seems unfair that they can change limit of the threshold just like that making people loose out especially for first time buyers.

Thankyou

morg_monster

Is it fair? No
Is there anything you can do about it? No (assuming you bought the house before the threshold was changed).

sorry fella. i'm in the same situation :-(

dphood

Thats ok, I thought that may be the case, I was expecting it, seen i'm the only person living in the property (where as some have 2 incomes coming in) it would of been nice they seem to be able to change it to suite them to hopefully get the marketing going, they say its to help first time buyers but it dosen't really there's always a motive behind these things and that how they can feel there pockets and look good at the same time. It would be nice if they would refund some of the money back, but I suppose that is too much to ask of them, tomorrow they will probably change the threshold again as they see fit.

Thanks for your reply.

housebuyer_abc

dphood wrote: »

Thats ok, I thought that may be the case, I was expecting it, seen i'm the only person living in the property (where as some have 2 incomes coming in) it would of been nice they seem to be able to change it to suite them to hopefully get the marketing going, they say its to help first time buyers but it dosen't really there's always a motive behind these things and that how they can feel there pockets and look good at the same time. It would be nice if they would refund some of the money back, but I suppose that is too much to ask of them, tomorrow they will probably change the threshold again as they see fit.

Thanks for your reply.

The joys of taxation, no government would ever consider retrospective tax boundary changes, as it undermines consumer confidence.

For instance what if they said today we intend to raise VAT to 25% from 1st April 2010 (yes we know that date has gone so anyone paying VAT between then and now will have to give us the extra) - This is exactly what you are asking for with Stamp Duty only in reverse

Look on the bright side though - when you purchased you expected to pay SD on the price and you didn;t have to pay anymore than you expected.

Fire_Fox

If the government didn't change stamp duty thresholds "just like that" we'd be stuck with stamp duty on all properties over £60K or whatever it used to be!