Government response to petition to extend Stamp Duty Holiday

youth_leader

Thank you Neil49, I appreciate your advice.   I am scared of losing the property and will just suck it up.  It is in budget, is in the village where my children spent their childhood, hopefully cheap to run, and more importantly the end of three very grim years of selling/house hunting. 

FTB_Help

youth_leader said:

 the elation soon fades doesn't it.

 

Oh got it, i thought your offer was accepted, then weeks later the vendor asked for an increase!

Yes house buying is a roller coaster, one min you're up, offer accepted and planning your future and envisioning the plans you have to redecorated and having kids running around, the next min you're down and stressed and scrambling round trying to find cash to put aside for the possibility of paying stamp duty. Im in London so I'm looking at forking out £26k in stamp duty 😢

FTB_Help

blue_max_3 said:

I'm buying now and factored in the fact that it would be an additional £15k after 31st March. If it was to be extended, I'd feel mislead, as it formed part of my purchasing decision. 
I rather wish they had not introduced it at all. It just pushed prices up as far as I can see.

Are you saying if stamp duty holiday was extended and you get to save the 15k you'd feel misled and want to pay this? 🤔

amandacat

I think the stamp duty holiday ending is a benefit for some types of buyers. All that seems to have happened is houses have been priced higher than more than most people will save on stamp duty. One of the reason we are moving into rented is because houses in the area we are moving to have increased by around 20k compared to before the SD holiday. We sold our house for the price we had hoped to sell it for pre covid, whether we may be considered foolish or not, we refused to inflate the price and take advantage. 
FTB have been hit particularly hard, hopefully the market will be less crazy, more 90% LTV mortgages return and prices will adjust back meaning FTBs have a chance again.
This may be an unpopular opinion but at the same time I am sympathetic to anyone who won’t meet the March deadline and I do think it would’ve been good to have kept it in place for anyone already in the house buying process rather than a hard deadline. 

FTB_Help

amandacat said:

I think the stamp duty holiday ending is a benefit for some types of buyers. All that seems to have happened is houses have been priced higher than more than most people will save on stamp duty. One of the reason we are moving into rented is because houses in the area we are moving to have increased by around 20k compared to before the SD holiday. We sold our house for the price we had hoped to sell it for pre covid, whether we may be considered foolish or not, we refused to inflate the price and take advantage. 
FTB have been hit particularly hard, hopefully the market will be less crazy, more 90% LTV mortgages return and prices will adjust back meaning FTBs have a chance again.
This may be an unpopular opinion but at the same time I am sympathetic to anyone who won’t meet the March deadline and I do think it would’ve been good to have kept it in place for anyone already in the house buying process rather than a hard deadline. 

Agreed, it has helped and hindered at the same time.

Yes most house prices have inflated and seeing lots in this board where they're being downvalued.

Most of my ftb friends/ myself included, have decided to buy now and were happy to look at properties in a higher price bracket than in our original plan as it meant saving stamp duty, finding a decent property in London under 500k is very hard, so many of my friends have gone looking at the 550k + bracket as it means there is more properties available that isnt the size of a box and not have to pay a massive stamp duty.

The holiday has helped in waking up the housing market and protected and created jobs during these times such as housebuilders/ contractors, EA, surveyors, conveyancer etc and has helped increase in spending which helps the economy.

Its is difficult to say how to justify what it means to be in the process to be able to justify who can and can not benefit from the tax break after March. I suppose if you've exchanged, but many people who are currently in the process now or have been for the last few months, may be far off from exchanging for a number of reasons such as slow mortgage offers etc.

But if no extension is provided then i do see lots of chains falling apart so very tricky and it would be helpful if the government took this all into consideration

blue_max_3

FTB_Help said:

blue_max_3 said:

I'm buying now and factored in the fact that it would be an additional £15k after 31st March. If it was to be extended, I'd feel mislead, as it formed part of my purchasing decision. 
I rather wish they had not introduced it at all. It just pushed prices up as far as I can see.

Are you saying if stamp duty holiday was extended and you get to save the 15k you'd feel misled and want to pay this? 🤔

Can't really understand your sentence, but this initiative has incentivised me to move earlier than I had intended. Moving home is complicated and moving the goal posts makes planning so much harder. My ability to move quickly has been a factor in my sale. If it's extended, I'd feel more vulnerable as a buyer.

Crashy_Time

Sibbers123 said:

Hard to justify politically to extend the SDLT holiday. Naga on BBC breakfast will be asking all sorts. 'You can afford to cut SDLT up to £15,000 but can't afford to feed hungry school children, have frozen public sector pay, excluded up to 3 million people from financial support' etc etc.

The only benefit of an extension would be to get existing deals across the line. We have known since June it will expire on 31st March 2021 so everyone has been working towards that date. An extension will not have the impact the initial holiday had for this reason.

Also, the fact we are in a bubble negates any stamp duty holiday anyway as you are paying more overall. The only benefit is that you can mortgage the purchase price, but you have to pay cash for SDLT and people don't have cash but are happy to borrow up to their ears!

I won't be signing as it is just short-termism and kicking the can down the road.

Exactly, just more nonsense to keep the bubble afloat a while longer.