Petition: Stamp duty holiday to be triggered upon exchange of contracts

stevenbecca

exchange and complete sameday, solves that problem 

Lavendyr

AdrianC said:

Lavendyr said:

What's more, the timeframe is really not just in the buyer/vendor hands. Those who say "get a grip" may not realise how busy the housing market has been in the last six months. Even in a chain free purchase, it can take months from offer to completion because estate agents and solicitors are utterly rammed. My partner and I offered on a property in early November 2020 and only completed in mid-March 2021. This was an utterly uncomplicated transaction - we were chain free, our vendors were too, we had our mortgage in place a week after offer. The delays were solely down to overburdened solicitors, surveyors and the local authorities in responding to requests for searches.

And when in that did you exchange?

Because you ain't ready to exchange until the "overburdened solicitors, surveyors and the local authorities in responding to requests for searches" have done their thing. Simultaneous exchange and completion has been more rife than before through this last year.

Indeed. We didn't exchange until we had got that far. We exchanged 2 weeks before completion because our sellers requested that time. Even if that hadn't been the case I would not have opted for simultaneous exchange/complete. A lot of stress, no certainty. Aside from meeting the SDLT deadline I see no benefit to it for any party. Edit to add that when we were requesting quotes from removals firms, many said they would not even consider quoting until exchange had taken place because they were so busy. In this market that is the reality. 

hazyjo said:

If an exchange date is before the end of the stamp duty holiday, they could just complete on the same day. If they miss the reprieve and have exchanged, they only have themselves to blame.

Your argument makes little sense. What's so special about those who have exchanged? What about the others who may be several months in who haven't reached exchange? You say "...a load of people will pull out of purchases because they won't complete in time." But that's surely everyone. It certainly won't be those who have exchanged, will it.

Your argument makes less sense. People who have exchanged have entered into a legally binding contract to pay a certain amount for a property. If they had to pay SDLT on top of it they might have contracted to pay less. If you haven't exchanged, you are not legally bound and can amend the price offered or pull out at any time. 

I really don't understand why the idea of tapering such that those who have exchanged by X date get to complete without stamp duty has so many people so riled up? Isn't it better than a drop off a cliff? I've yet to see one good reason for not allowing the stamp duty exremption to taper in this way based on exchange. It isn't a "keep on going indefinitely" - it's a way of ensuring that people who have legally committed to complete are able to do so.

Further edit to add that the risk I mentioned of people pulling out is that people would pull out of house buying pre-exchange if it looked like they would not be able to complete by the stamp duty holiday deadline. Tapering would give people the certainty and comfort of being able to exchange.

hazyjo

That's just your preference though.

As said, people can just have a shorter gap. They can't exchange until they have an agreed completion date. If they exchange before the deadline, they can complete too if they're that desperate to beat the deadline.

Nobody is going to exchange and be hit with an unexpected bill. They will know they're going to miss the deadline before they exchange. So either do it same day or drop the price before exchanging if it's that much of a problem.

You're just moving the goalposts. If say they say people can exchange, do you have a time limit on that? You'll end up with people taking ridiculous risks with properties thinking they can exchange early and give themselves a completion date 3 or so months ahead to play catch up.

[Deleted User]

You can exchange and complete the same day.

You can factor in the foreseeable possibility that you wont make the deadline and have to pay the duty.

Now you may try to reason away the above but a reality check is that its a pretty weak petition & its hard to be sympathetic to it.

[Deleted User]

This is really only an issue on new builds when you exchange with little input on completion dates but as someone already said, just have your solicitor set the long stop date to match the end of the holiday to resolve this.

The 3 month extension was supoosed to ease worries for people who were just going to miss the previous deadline.

If someone bought in February then they should have been expecting to pay SD anyway. The holiday extension was a nice bonus to them that they may or may not get.

The people who are going to collapse transactions and cause problems are the ones that even at end of April are starting to buy with the expectation of getting completed before end of June.  I've no sympathy for these people as they ignore all the professionals who say it's impossible 

AdrianC

Lavendyr said:

AdrianC said:

Lavendyr said:

What's more, the timeframe is really not just in the buyer/vendor hands. Those who say "get a grip" may not realise how busy the housing market has been in the last six months. Even in a chain free purchase, it can take months from offer to completion because estate agents and solicitors are utterly rammed. My partner and I offered on a property in early November 2020 and only completed in mid-March 2021. This was an utterly uncomplicated transaction - we were chain free, our vendors were too, we had our mortgage in place a week after offer. The delays were solely down to overburdened solicitors, surveyors and the local authorities in responding to requests for searches.

And when in that did you exchange?

Because you ain't ready to exchange until the "overburdened solicitors, surveyors and the local authorities in responding to requests for searches" have done their thing. Simultaneous exchange and completion has been more rife than before through this last year.

Indeed. We didn't exchange until we had got that far. We exchanged 2 weeks before completion because our sellers requested that time. Even if that hadn't been the case I would not have opted for simultaneous exchange/complete. A lot of stress, no certainty. Aside from meeting the SDLT deadline I see no benefit to it for any party.

So the "But solicitors and searches are slow" doesn't help your argument that exchange should be the SDLT threshold, does it? Because exchange is still after they've done their slow bit...

TBG01

Just exchange when the offer is accepted. From what I've learned form here is solicitors are unnecessarily slow. So who cares if you buy a defective title or a property over a mine shaft that's about to collapse. Who cares if your mortgage lender wont lend and you're stumped with finding the whole balance elsewhere. At least you saved a few grand in tax and can just blame the solicitor anyway. 

justworriedabit

Why not have a "petition" to have stamp duty holiday extended, lol-ish, sorry but it had to be said.

Tiglet2

TBG01 said:

Just exchange when the offer is accepted. From what I've learned form here is solicitors are unnecessarily slow. So who cares if you buy a defective title or a property over a mine shaft that's about to collapse. Who cares if your mortgage lender wont lend and you're stumped with finding the whole balance elsewhere. At least you saved a few grand in tax and can just blame the solicitor anyway. 

This ^^^

Whenever there is an incentive offered in the housing market, there has to be a cut off date.  There will always be people who benefit from it and those who will miss it by days.  The stamp duty deadline has been extended once to the relief of a lot of people who were in the middle of buying, so the extension has most likely helped them, which was what was intended.  

If prices fall once the deadline has passed, there will be people complaining that their property has lost more value than the stamp duty they saved.

You can't please all of the people all of the time.

justworriedabit

lookstraightahead said:

What about everyone who isn't in a position to buy until next year? Should we stretch it out for them too?

or the year after that.