Anyone struggling complete selling & buying a property by the end of March?

[hanimama]

We started to sell and buy a property last July, but it looks like we still won't be able to complete by the end of March when the stamp duty finishes, due to extremely slow admin process and all the covid restriction. Many of my friends are going through same issue, so I raised a petition. Please join me if anyone has same issue! Thank you!

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/563568

I'm selling a property- agents have said they hope we will be done in feb...

Why don’t you think you’ll complete by the end of March as it is only 2 January today? I think your petition is about 2 months too premature.

I know there are delays- I am also buying/selling and hoping to complete by the end of March but I can’t see any problems with that at the moment. Where are you in the process that makes you think it will be stalled for 3 months?

I do sympathise with your situation on a personal level, but I'm afraid I don't agree on a practical level. There has to be a cut off sometime and regardless of when that is some people will miss out.

There was always the risk that longer or more complicated chains wouldn't be able to complete in time, but the policy did it's job of stimulating the property market regardless. Plus i'd rather the money was in the government coffers for better uses and people who really need it.

You don't give reasons why your chain has taken so long, perhaps there are some ways you can force your sale through in time? If you post you circumstances, there are some knowledgeable people on this board who might be able to help.

In a similar position, and it's going to be chaos at the end of March with chains collapsing if the government don't do something. But honouring it for the people who've exchanged by the end of March isn't the solution. It will encourage people to commit to purchases that they haven't done enough due diligence on. It will result in big gaps between exchange and completion (need to exchange by a certain date, but not complete until there's more availability of movers, etc) - then if someone loses their job or the bank tightens up their lending in the time in between, they and everyone down the chain lose their deposit - potentially huge sums of money.

The solution is to gradually taper it off. At the moment, the holiday is for everything up to £500,000 that completes by the end of March. They need to do something like drop that threshold by £50k per week/fortnight until it's back to the normal level. If I see that petition, I'll sign it.

Word in the financial markets is that Rishi will be extending it. Hopefully another six months should do the trick!

@Flower2021

Word in the financial markets is that Rishi will be extending it. Hopefully another six months should do the trick!

Do you have a source for this? I've seen no evidence of an extension at all.