About Stamp Duty/ sellers and buyers

EverGreen_2

I have been reading the threads about the duty stamp. I am confused a bit. Do sellers and bueyrs pay stamp duty for the same one house? My understanding is Only buyers do this or otherwise it can be unfair. In the other thread someone, owner of a house in London that is worth 2M, triggered my question.

Cissi

EverGreen wrote: »

I have been reading the threads about the duty stamp. I am confused a bit. Do sellers and bueyrs pay stamp duty for the same one house? My understanding is Only buyers do this or otherwise it can be unfair. In the other thread someone, owner of a house in London that is worth 2M, triggered my question.

No, only buyers pay. I think that may have been my post, saying that I'm glad we're not planning to move. The reason I mentioned the probable value of our house was that if we did move (given the area that we live in and plan to say in) we'd most likely buy something in the same general price range. Plus of course the fact that it would make our house even more expensive for potential buyers (which might reduce the value - fine if what we were buying was similarly affected, not so good if we were looking to downsize).

Sorry for confusing you

kidmugsy

EverGreen wrote: »

Do sellers and bueyrs pay stamp duty for the same one house? My understanding is Only buyers do this.

There's an interesting question lurking in there. As an accounting matter, only the buyer pays. But what is the economic incidence? For instance, if the buyer having to stump up £5k of Stamp Duty reduces the price the seller can get for the house by £5k, the economic incidence actually falls on the seller. No doubt economists have studied this.

The old system, with its ludicrous "slab" structure, certainly hit the seller, with his effective inability to charge, say, £260k for a house because of the cut-off at £250k. Good riddance to that.

googler

EverGreen wrote: »

I have been reading the threads about the duty stamp. I am confused a bit. Do sellers and bueyrs pay stamp duty for the same one house? My understanding is Only buyers do this or otherwise it can be unfair. In the other thread someone, owner of a house in London that is worth 2M, triggered my question.

Many sellers are selling so that they can buy elsewhere. So they don't pay on their sale (their buyer does), but on their onward purchase, and they need to juggle both sets of figures if they're buying or selling around a threshold.