What if Stamp Duty was abolished?

[Dingledongledell]

I work in an industry that hears lots about tax policy. Stamp Duty is widely regarded to be the UKs most stupid tax. It stops people loving house when their house no longer meets their needs and prevents them from moving areas to take new jobs. It is incredibly economically damaging.

I have a big house as we bought it to accommodate multigenerational living. My MIL is now in a care home and I’d love to downsize. I’d love to live mortgage free, but if we downsized to a property £150k cheaper than our current house any savings would be largely eaten up by stamp duty.

I feel trapped in a big house with a big mortgage. We paid a vast amount of stamp duty to move here not too long ago. We are surrounded by neighbours who have lived in their large houses for many many years. Why should I pay hundreds of thousands in stamp duty over the years just because we move house, when others can sit in vast houses paying nothing more than council tax? It makes no sense to me.

What changes would you make to your current living if stamp duty was abolished?

I appreciate that living in Scotland where stamp duty is far, far higher than in England just exacerbates this problem.

Many of us buy flats and houses that are too small for us, because they are incredibly expensive now, and have no equity to fall back onto. Plus stamp duty. So yes, she absolutely has an option buying a slightly cheaper flat and paying stamp duty, just like the rest of us. She will pay for care with the new flat equity.

Does it mean there’s less left to give away to children, absolutely, but it doesn’t mean she cannot afford stamp duty. It’s a pure selfish approach and I don’t believe anyone should be funding it with higher council tax or whatever else on top of all the stamp duties they paid to buy a place already.

They haven't. They have rouglhly doubled since 1980, although most of that increase was between 1996 and 2006.

https://www.cladco.co.uk/media/wysiwyg/blog/graph_real_house_price_over_time.webp

Thanks !!!

Not anything like 10 times then

You’re missing the point that

1. ground floor flats on average are more expensive
2. you have no idea if she can afford it
3. you have no idea if after buying a ground floor flat there will be any left over from the sale of her second floor flat at all. Presumably not as she can’t afford the move
4. who mentioned children ???

If she can’t afford to move there’s nothing selfish about that.

If she didn’t want to move it wouldn’t be selfish either
What a bizarre thought, no one controls other people choices in life.

Well apparently you were saying that stamp duty is controlling the choice? It is a choice not to pay it after all and it isn’t an affordability issue from what it sounds. I can see how it would benefit someone in her position to have stamp duty abolished.

But what about all the ftbs who wouldn’t be able to buy due to the property boom, yet again? As someone who bought after covid boom calmed down, I can tell that Id rather pay 100k less for the property and pay 20k in stamp duty than the other way round. Abolishing it only benefits people who own houses or has large equity accumulation.

Abolishing stamp duty doesnt affect people who already own property
and has no effect on equity ( large small or non at all ) on their property either

If you’ve bought you’d know this

We are in the oldest cohort of boomers, born just after WWII. We live in a three bedroomed house which we own. We have no family nearby, and our health, as is fairly normal towards 80 is declining. We’d really like to downsize to a flat in an independent living complex. In the private sector, that would cost more than we’d get for our house, never mind the ongoing service charges that we can’t afford on our income.

We could use the capital we would get from selling our home to self fund, which would benefit the taxpayer, and we’d free up a house that is reasonably affordable for a young couple - judging by the several new neighbours who’ve bought recently.

Our local council won’t consider us because we’re homeowners. In hindsight, it would have been smarter on our incomes not to save for retirement. Unless you’re going to be really well off in retirement, spend on holidays, nice cars, kids, grandkids, and just rent. You could get a nice retirement flat at 60, courtesy of your local authority, paid for by housing benefits.