Stamp duty rumours

rmc1664

Hi all,

You all helped us decide on a house a while back, so firstly, thanks for that!

We're nearing exchange, and wonder what you all think of the stamp duty reform suggested by various political parties?
The promise of stamp duty cuts was pretty convincing earlier this year, and we hoped would be clarified on Nov 6th (before the cancelled budget), but recently it seems like they're avoiding the subject and shifting focus to public spending - which raises doubts for me that it would happen any time soon.

Would you ask the vendor for a delay between exchange and completion just incase something comes up? Assuming it's not a deal breaker.. Or just get on with it? We'd stand to save quite a bit if the threshold was raised to £500k.

Thank you!

Lokolo

Get on with it. You can be a winner or a loser. They may even raise stamp duty and then you'll be punching yourself.

davidmcn

Get on with it. There's absolutely no certainty of anything happening to SDLT any time soon (even if there was a firm manifesto pledge by a party certain to win an overall majority, and we don't have either of those), and always the possibility of unknown things round the corner.

pinkteapot

At this point I'd say get on with it. There definitely won't be a budget till after the election, and then it won't be for a while (takes a few months to prepare it). When there was a budget due on 6th Nov I said avoid completing immediately before it, if you can do so without making your chain jumpy. At this point, there really is nothing imminent.

kinger101

rmc1664 wrote: »

Hi all,

You all helped us decide on a house a while back, so firstly, thanks for that!

We're nearing exchange, and wonder what you all think of the stamp duty reform suggested by various political parties?
The promise of stamp duty cuts was pretty convincing earlier this year, and we hoped would be clarified on Nov 6th (before the cancelled budget), but recently it seems like they're avoiding the subject and shifting focus to public spending - which raises doubts for me that it would happen any time soon.

Would you ask the vendor for a delay between exchange and completion just incase something comes up? Assuming it's not a deal breaker.. Or just get on with it? We'd stand to save quite a bit if the threshold was raised to £500k.

Thank you!

You are near exchange. The General Election is over a month away. The date of a budget, and whether there will actually be any changes to SDLT are unknown. But perhaps unlikely since the two main contenders for the chancellor position have signaled their intent to spend more money they don't have on infrastructure projects which always end up costing a least twice as much as proposed.

Role the dice if you wish, but there's just as much change the vendor will stick the property back on the market.

SDLTQuery

If SDLT were to be scrapped for properties under £500,000...do we think there'll be any relief for 2nd time buyers - or all (if any) relief reserved for FTB? (Buy to live, not let...). All speculation, I know...

£25k in stamp duty is such an eyesore

SmashedAvacado

This sort of thing is never leaked. At the moment, we don't even know what the government will look like, so the idea that we can predict whether SDLT will be changed in the next budget is just not a credible one. "rumours" are typically people speculating about what might happen. But they never come from the government who actually make the decision.

csgohan4

is it worth losing the current house on a rumour? if it is go ahead and pull out

davidmcn

SDLTQuery wrote: »

If SDLT were to be scrapped for properties under £500,000...do we think there'll be any relief for 2nd time buyers - or all (if any) relief reserved for FTB? (Buy to live, not let...). All speculation, I know...

£25k in stamp duty is such an eyesore

Whoever the next government is, I hope they don't regard couples who can afford to own more than one house as some sort of spending priority.