End of Stamp Duty holiday unlikely to hit market
Share
A property website which sells chain free properties has claimed that the end of the Stamp Duty holiday will not impact the market as much as was feared.
Whitehotproperty.co.uk, which sells repossessed properties, properties going through probate and part exchanged properties, says that almost half of the properties listed on its website fall under the incoming Stamp Duty threshold of £125,000.
The government extended the threshold for paying Stamp Duty last year from £125,000 to £175,000 in a bid to encourage movement in the housing market.
The threshold is set to return to £125,000 as of January 1 2010.
Robin King, director of Whitehotproperty.co.uk, says: “Come the New Year there will still be a significant number of homes falling under the stamp duty threshold, indicating that buyers will not have to worry about the impact of the stamp duty’s return as much as was initially feared.”
But the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors disagrees.
It believes that the return of the lower Stamp Duty threshold could be detrimental to housing market recovery, particularly in regions where house prices are continuing to fall.
Trade bodies including the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, the Council of Mortgage Lenders, and the Building Societies Association have all given their backing to an industry coalition which is lobbying the government to modernise the way Stamp Duty is levied.
If you enjoyed this article, sign up here to receive daily email updates from Mortgage Strategy and Follow @mortgagestrat
