[quote IamthatIam]@RainingBatsAndFrogs, fair to whom and at the expense of who? Do you suppose there is an unending pot of money somewhere. For every freebie you get, someone else has to pay either through more taxes or through loss of support from the government.
By your logic the extended stamp duty relief will never end because whatever the deadline there will always be people who have exchanged by the deadline. So if that is the criterion how will it ever end if you extend?[/quote]
Well firstly the housing market is very valuable to the Gvt even without SDLT. It fuels solicitors, surveyors and EAs, all of whom have VAT on their fees. The SDLT holiday only covers the first £500k so is an incentive, in a time when otherwise the market could be dead and generating no taxes whatsoever, to those buying more expensive houses to be paying SDLT on another £500k worth of property.
And fair to the people who are in the process of buying but it is delayed firstly by the November lockdown and now, in London at least, by Tier 4. Jobs taking longer, surveyors working under COVID-safe conditions having longer waiting lists etc etc. There will be many chains collapsing because of these delays if the buyers cannot afford to buy with the full SDLT. And they will have already paid for a survey / searches / incurred solicitor fees.
It doesn’t need to go on for ever. If you have exchanged, you are under contract. They could say everyone who exchanges by a certain date, or anyone who has mortgage agreed survey booked / searches paid for. Or some other appropriate and verifiable part of the process.
They instigated the holiday because it is good for the Gvt for the property market to be moving. Not because they wanted to be nice to people! So, in the end it is presumably of net benefit. If they don’t extend they will introduce some new wheeze to get people to buy housing.