Anyone else benefiting from the change to Stamp Duty?

[BeautifulLiar]

I'm over the moon! Loads has gone wrong for me lately (not house related) so this is welcome news.

We're hopefully completing next month and will save £300.

I'll be using that to buy a giant new wardrobe!

That sounds great.

But won't people who can afford, say, £300,000 to buy a house now be able to afford just a tiny bit more, so will bid the price up?

My husbands cousin will save £1600 - hopefully enough to cover the flat roof repair that needs to be done after they move in

Maybe PigletJohn, but I don't think that will affect us. Not like the hundreds of tax credits changes! Finally the government have pulled something good out of that bloody red briefcase

Pfft. Drop in the ocean. If you can afford tens of hundreds of thousands on a house, it's hardly noticeable. It's also an insult for someone who will never be able to raise a deposit of tens of thousands in the first place.

It was unexpected and a nice surprise. We'll be saving £5k.Though I agree it doesn't really do anything for people who can't afford to buy in the first place.

"Of" should be "or"...

I think it's not found what it is intended to do. To make buying easier. Whoever thought of that must have failed maths at school!

"Found" should be "doing". I worry for my brain these days!

It's actually just going to push house prices up so not really going to help at all! What they really need to do is address the hefty % of Stamp Duty at the other end that's causing stagnation to both the housing and job markets.

Sorry didn't mean to just post a

Good for you, that's brilliant news :-)

We completed in September and paid £11,000 on our stamp duty (first time buyer). We could have saved £5,000 if we were completing this month. Feeling frustrated. But that's life sometimes

We benefitted last time (in late 2014). We were between exchange and completion when George Osborne changed the rules and we saved £3k overnight. DH hates George O with a passion and it was to see him grudgingly accept the saving.

Spend some of it on some really good bubbly, OP! Lots of Christmas offer on now.

Like the idea of spending it on bubbly!

Oh we can't afford hundreds of thousands of pounds either. Our house is £140k! But still, like a PP said, it's an overnight saving so I can't complain at that!

Cross - It is all or nothing, so if your house cost is up to £300000 then you pay nil but over that you pay normal stamp duty on the whole house price.

The government have imposed a very strict definition of 'first time buyer'. You must never have owned a property before, be it joint or shared ownership, even if you don't currently own a property, not the same definition of FTB that the mortgage companies use.

No you don't Barchester, you only pay on the amount over £300000.

Oh is that right Through - someone I work with is a FTB, they must have got the wrong end of the stick. I am currently buying, not a FTB so no benefit to me sadly!

We are definitely first time buyers

Just checking out government website, 0% up to £300,000 then 5% on the portion between £300,000 and £500,000

Yup we should exchange next week, fingers crossed, saving us around £2.5k. Been saving for 7 years for the deposit so it's very welcome.
Don't think it'll solve the issues for FTB but it helps a little. Even if prices raise it's still mean less needed upfront which is the hard part.

Congratulations Candy

You'd be annoyed if you'd completed earlier in the week wouldn't you?!

Very glad we didn't do more chasing to speed things up!

Same

I think it's great that people who can afford to buy an asset that costs close to thirty times a year's nmw salary are being given a tax break. Even better that house prices will rise a result. Yep. Really good news. Good to hear you'll be spending it on champagne as well - that tax break was obviously needed.

Well that's a bit harsh!

We complete tomorrow. I'm not 100% sure where we stand. DP spoke to solicitor yesterday and she said they hadn't had the fineprint through, but was 99% sure we wouldn't have to pay it. I'm itching to call her tomorrow to find out, it means we would save £1200 and be a massive help.

In the long run, it will probably push prices up but I can't even pretend to be knowledgeable about how these things work!