Stamp duty dilemma

[Absa]

Wanting to buy a new home to relocate. Have found somewhere we'd like to offer on. Planning to rent our current house out rather than selling, and also have another rental.

I'm such a dilemma whether to hold off / let this house go / delay the search until the Autumn Budget comes out in the hopes that stamp duty is scrapped for houses under £500K.

If so, we'd save about £16,5000 which is a considerable sum of money for us.

But is it worth waiting in hope?!

You need to work out the numbers on the rental vs the extra money it will cost.
There is no guarantee that they will scrap it or on what terms (if it applies to 2nd homes) or even if the current government will be around for it to stick before another scraps it. Since the budget is only a few weeks away- worth waiting to see what they say.
Also is there no way for you to switch your current house to a buy to let? So that it can be your only residence to save you some money on the stamp duty that way?

Plan for the stamp duty not being scrapped and then you will have a nice little bonus available in the (highly unlikely) event that it is!! Seriously - can you really see the Government (of ANY party!) getting rid of the cash cow/tax that is Stamp Duty?!

You are unlikely to have completed by October/ November anyway.

@Getitdonet do know when the budget is? I've tried to look but it doesn't seem there is a date set.
And also, if we switch to a buy to let, how does that help to avoid the stamp duty as we would still own 3 houses in total?

Autumn budget is usually in Oct sometime, just have to keep eyes peeled.
Just checked & the extra stamp duty applies to both additional homes & buy to let so no difference at all.

If it's your third property, I can't see much scope for you to be exempt from stamp duty. That's usually reserved to first time buyers. I think you are over-optimistic.