Stamp Duty Holiday Period

[SK72]

Do you think that the stamp duty holiday period will be extended beyond March 2021?

I think not, but policy is made by knee jerk these days so I wouldn't be placing bets either way. The end of March is another country

Hopefully not, but then then Rishi said furlough would absolutely not be extended as there is no pont a couple of months ago and now a few days ago he has extended it til March, so who knows what he will waste tax payers money on next. If stamp duty holiday ends then the price increases that have resulted because of it will come back down as buyers will have to factor in paying stamp duty so buyers will pay less for the house they wish to buy.

At the same point the stamp duty ends, so does the Universal Credit increase, leaving families living in poverty with £20 less each week. It would be incredibly crass to extend the stamp duty holiday.

I’m inclined to think not as the housing market is remaining open during this lockdown. If they stopped it, I think he’d have had too but you can still view, buy, move so I imagine it’ll come to end.

Could go either way but probably not. Conveyancing is very busy at the moment with no sign of a let up.

They’d be insane not to. A lot of deals aren’t going to make it by the deadline, and the housing market is one of the v few bits of good news in the economy anyway. There have always been economists arguing against the existence of stamp duty at all (I disagree with this).

Yes. My bet would be that it stays that way until the end of the current parliament. It's a tax break for aspirational middle income voters (and not a massive revenue raiser in the grand scheme of things) I can imagine the Tories would love to go into the next election pushing the message that Labour want to put SDLT back up and ruin the housing market and the economy and stifle the dreams of those "hard working families"they keep banging on about. That's what I'd do if I were Rishi Sunak (particularly if I had any aspirations of being PM) but maybe I'm too cynical 😂

I think they will extend it or taper it off.
They will want to keep the housing market as buoyant as possible despite the recession. The Tories will want to keep their party donors and voters happy and their own portfolios in good shape.

I have wondered if he will say that any sales agreed by xxx date will keep the stamp duty exemption even if the sale hasn't completed by 31/03. Otherwise so many chains will collapse and the market will crash.

My bet would be that it stays that way until the end of the current parliament.

I don’t think so - Covid has bankrupted the country, we need the money!

I really think they'll extend it another 6 months, but only announce that in March, and another mini boom will happen.

@Hayeahnobut I think I saw that the extra UC £20 has already been extended to last another year.

I have been thinking about this and I do hope they will extend it - even by a month or two, announced beginning of March. It will give those matters already in progress a bit of breathing space but it isn't long enough for new matters to start.
I pity conveyancers come March - it is going to be insanely busy.

I doubt it, and I don't think it will be required anyway.

The reason the holiday was introduced is because everybody totally freaked out when Covid hit and the property market ground to a halt with people not wanting to make big decisions. The holiday gave people already in the process an incentive to press ahead with their house moves.

It was a helping hand for people caught trying to move house in a pandemic.