3 month extension to stamp duty holiday

[MindatWork]

Just announced this morning as an exclusive in The Times: ‪ www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stamp-duty-holiday-will-be-extended-to-end-of-june-gc0qfrckz‬ (apologies no share token).

Looks like it will run to end of June. Won’t help us as we’ve not even got ours on the market yet but hopefully will save some others on here some cash!

Argh link broken 😑 www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stamp-duty-holiday-will-be-extended-to-end-of-june-gc0qfrckz

Thanks for sharing! We are hoping to complete by the end of March but this is good for us, in case it doesn't quite happen in time.

When will it be confirmed? Does it say? (I couldn't see the whole article).

Thanks god. Lower chain all in place and holding on, have an offer in on and end of chain house. Now to hope our offer is accepted and it all goes through in 4 months.

I have seen this! Makes me breath a bit easier! I would still like to complete by end of March, but even an extra week will give us breathing space in case of not being able to get removals, Covid or self isolation in the chain etc.

Everything is taking much longer at the moment due to numbers of people moving + less people doing the work (furlough, illness, isolation in mortgage companies, councils, solicitors, surveyors etc). The extra time is needed because everything is taking longer!

SDR is still available for FTB under £300, OOO so how much help is it
in fact? Pushes prices up a bit I suppose

Do you have to complete by end March 2021 still?

Same here, @Hmmph! I'm pretty confident all our legal work will be done by the end of March, but it's irrelevant people can't get movers, and the moving companies are getting booked up already. Hopefully this will ease things a bit.

irrelevant if people can't get movers

@Justpassingtime1 saved us £8500 which we then put directly back into the community/economy on trades etc getting the house ready, so helped us and a few others!

Pleased it'll help a few more people.

It's not definite - but fingers crossed. We will know when Rishi announces budget next week.

In my experience it has not pushed prices up in my area BTW.

@Justpassingtime1 it helps the people already living in the up to £300k houses to move to other houses so the ftb have somewhere to buy.

Hmmph Thanks so that is how it works

The stamp duty holiday definitely pushed prices up where I am, think people won’t actually have saved anything.

I think it would have been more sensible to have tapered it so that sales agreed during the SDLT holiday could still take advantage of it, but not to unilaterally extend it. It has definitely pushed prices up in the areas we are looking.

From Sky News:

'The chancellor had been urged to push back the deadline as many people have been left scrambling to complete their transactions before the end date.'

And this sorts that issue how, exactly? Surely people will now just be scrambling to complete by the end of June? It's a cliff-edge either way.

It's actually mildly irritating to me personally; I put my flat on the market recently thinking that at least the worst of the conveyancing scrum caused by the stamp duty holiday would be over and done with by the time I got to that point (my flat, and anything I could afford to buy, are cheap enough properties that the stamp duty involved isn't really a major financial factor, and in any case mine will most likely to to a FTB who won't have to pay it anyway). I think it would be totally reasonable to extend it for transactions that are already in the works and just might not get across the line in time, but if he does that by just creating a new live for everyone then it just creates the same cliff edge in a few months, and means all the administrative stages of the process stay manic for even longer

TinyGlassOwl It's thought that stamp duty reform will follow - stamp duty and council tax abolished and both replaced with one annual tax.

I already did the sums on mine and it would cost me an extra few hundred a year, but save me thousands on stamp duty when moving thereby both increasing the value of my home as less cash required upfront to buy, and also making it easier for me to move (same reason, as stamp duty cannot be covered by mortgage, but an increased home value can).

This reform would be a huge benefit to existing home owners. Ftbs will need to be catered for with more building and help to buy otherwise it will be problematic from that angle.

And this sorts that issue how, exactly? Surely people will now just be scrambling to complete by the end of June? It's a cliff-edge either way.

I think it's to protect the people and purchases who put in an offer and started the process with confidence the transaction would complete by 31/3 and as such did not budget for SDT, as it's been so busy and Covid it's taking longer than usual. I think the extension is to protect those already in the process, anyone who puts in an offer now would be foolish to assume they will absolutely get the SDT relief and should budget assuming they won't.

I think the extension should have been for 2 months rather than 3. This is going to lead to another flurry of houses going on the market in the hopes of completing in time as people think 12 weeks is just about enough time if they are lucky. Will be another cliff edge in June with house sales falling through. 2 months would have been enough to allow purchases currently underway to go through in time, and ease the demand on conveyancers / removal companies.

If it’s announced in the budget next week it will be almost four months until the end of June and more house buyers will enter the race to make that deadline.

@SheWouldNever anyone starting a purchase now will be moronic to assume they would be complete by the new deadline, by all means aim for it, but anyone starting now should be going in to it with their eyes wide open. No one who couldn't afford to pay SDT should start the process now, and I think that's the difference between when it started and this extension. Not that it'll stop some of course.

@user85963842 of course they shouldn't count on the SDLT reduction, but guaranteed there will be a lot of wishful thinking. Just look at the number of mumsnet threads mid December - Jan of people asking whether they stood a chance of making the deadline if they offered on houses now.

Those buying chain free, I.e. landlords could probably make the deadline. That's not great for the market.

Just makes a new cliff edge as far as I can see, keeping the market artificially propped up and keeping the work pressure on everyone involved.
A cut off is never easy, but the government seems scared to do anything that will give rise to more criticism, I expect this will lead to some major stamp duty reform in the long run.

Stamp duty holiday extended, furlough extended, business rate extended, VAT cut extended, It seems those support are endless..