Budget could collapse sale

[sillyquestionalert]

Is anyone else worried the upcoming budget will cause the sale of your house to fall through?
If everything lines up we are due to complete first week of Dec but I’m just waiting for news it’s all going to fall through.

Why, what are you specifically worried about?

Not entirely sure- I am a pessimist so maybe it’s just wired in me.
I go from worrying about a change in stamp duty will cause someone in the chain to pull out, income tax going up too much causing another to decide they can’t afford it

In which case, just wait and see what’s announced.

We completed at the end of October. No one in the chain even mentioned the budget.

If it fell though because of the budget, then it was very tenuous anyway and would have likely collapsed at some point!

Would stamp duty be changed again? It was only changed in March 🤯!

It's more likely that any increase will have a set date to come into effect that is at least 6 weeks away from the date of the announcement so as to allow any imminent sales like yours to go ahead unaffected. There will be a sudden flurry of sales being agreed on the day of the announcement as people who have been stalling or holding our for a better offer decide they need to make the sale happen so there might be a bit of a logjam if the solicitors you have appointed are a bit crap, but otherwise you'll probably be ok.

As long as you aren't deemed rich (ie: above 50k), you will be fine.

I imagine that OP is more worried about the things that are rumoured/leaked/hyped up by right wing media (pick whichever you’d prefer) such as doubling council tax on certain bands. If there’s a house in that band in the chain, I don’t think it would be overly surprising that if a change like that was made, the buyer of that house had to change their mind.

I’ll be pulling out of my sale of they double the higher council tax bands.

😂

Can I ask why? I think that a lot of buyers would pull out if this change is announced but why would a seller want to do so? Their property would only lose value over time.

im sstc and fully see the Budget collapsing the chain.

Im buying a band G at the end of the chain. I can well see a situation that changes income tax, corporation tax, sdlt and council tax. we simply can't afford to take financial hits on so many fronts. we will pull out.

Apologies, I didn’t word that very well.

We would stay put rather than buy the band G house we are in the process of purchasing.

We are completing and moving on budget day 🤦🏼‍♀️

That makes more sense. Thanks for clarifying.

Don't worry about stuff you can't control in life.

Worry about stuff you can, and maybe make a plan for when/if things don't turn out as expected.

Totally agree
All you can do is think through a plan B and then dwell on it any further.

I think you’ll find the threshold is now considered to be £45k!
I suspect the higher rate band will be dropped from £50k to £45k, on the 26th of November, along with a 2% rise in income tax. Not sure those earning over £45k will get the 2% drop in National Insurance, the Basic rate tax payers will get.

And this after is it 5 years of frozen tax bands at a time of record inflation compared to the last 40 years and house prices not too far off record highs in 2022.
Even less people with bother to work at all/work hard to get promotions if they do what you suggest. More ambitious and hard working people will leave the UK, meaning a higher tax burden for those who remain and more people on lower salaries remaining, a downward spiral. What a mess!

It is basically too late to do much now, a seller with a high council tax property could maybe persuade someone to buy with a sizeable price drop?

We are meant to be exchanging today (actually was meant to be yesterday) but the seller is messing us around. I’m surprised that they don’t have the imminent budget in their minds. We are due to shell out nearly £60k in stamp duty and if they do make any changes to that, we will of course be tempted to ensure we benefit from them (if they are beneficial)!

Perhaps it's a good thing for you that the sellers are messing around! I would wait until after the budget as it's only 2 weeks away now.

Yes. The other poster clarified that she meant she would pull out of her purchase, not sale btw.

Many people hoping to buy are probably waiting to see what happens to mortgage rates if they mess this up in a couple of weeks, they are already sowing doubt with the markets as to their ability to handle the economy sensibly?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/uk-bonds-sell-off-after-income-tax-u-turn/ar-AA1QqQXx