Stamp Duty and bust

shimano

It is painful, just bought my first place for around £290,000, nearly £9,000 down the drain sadly.

lee636

shimano wrote: »

It is painful, just bought my first place for around £290,000, nearly £9,000 down the drain sadly.

But have a lovely home i hope?? :eek:

Catbells

shimano wrote: »

It is painful, just bought my first place for around £290,000, nearly £9,000 down the drain sadly.

I'm not the only one then! Sounds VERY painful. Almost makes you want to cut a deal with the vendors doesn't it.:A

Catbells

jw2003 wrote: »

From what I can gather, a lot of people go in 10-15% under the asking price for the first offer which means you could go in at £450k and negotiate your way up to £499,999 - if the vendor meets you somewhere in the middle it's an added bonus

I've heard the same but this is outer London and wonder what the percent is here. I'm thinking 7/8%. Any one know??

bryanb

Catbells wrote: »

I've heard the same but this is outer London and wonder what the percent is here. I'm thinking 7/8%. Any one know??

Start so low that you feel embarassed!

shimano

Lovely place indeed! 2 Double bedrooms, garage, 840 sq ft in West London...

But as a first time buyer in London, a bit of distaste as the structure is silly. It should be cumulative like income tax, so you pay 3% on 250-500 etc, rather than the full wack. If they want to stimulate more house buying, they should do that. I had to have not only 26% deposit, but £9k, which effectively is a 29% deposit, only I am not gaining any equity on that 9k.

Just feel robbed. Get taxed, pay VAT on everything..then get taxed again. 9k would have bought a lot for the flat, or got me to 30% deposit.

Then again you could argue that without stamp duty or with a "cheaper" system, any savings could be wiped out by sellers wanting more money. End of the day I priced the place as the purchase price + stamp duty, not "oops forgot I need to pay £9k on top!"

westlondonbuyer

Totally agree, stamp duty is a very unjust tax and the fact that it isn't cumulative is outrageous.

It's unjust for vendors as well as buyers, as anyone whose house is valued around the thresholds will tell you.

sonastin

The market gets very false around the thresholds. A property that is a little bit better than a similar property should have and asking price / sale price that is a little bit higher than that of the similar property. But if that little bit takes the price over a stamp duty threshold buyers won't pay it. So the houses that are a little bit better have to come down below the threshold and that bit of the market is overcrowded. Then there is a BIG jump to the houses that are only just a little bit better than those that are a little bit better than those that are worth the threshold price, because they are sufficiently high above the threshold that people accept they are looking in that bracket again.

If it were a cumulative tax, the what-you-can-get-for-your money graph would be much smoother.

mrstinchcombe

For Stamp Duty to be either £15,000 on the property or £20,000 depending on whether it sells for £500,000 or £500,001 is quite frankly ridiculous.

Surely this has to be changed!!

geoffky

do what i done and get the sellers to pay stamp duty...