Thinking of moving?

With the recent Government announcement of a temporary lifting of all stamp duty up to £500,000, giving buyers a saving of up to £15,000, we are expecting the current strong market activity to continue during this period. A stamp duty freeze is a tried and tested way to reboot housing market activity and will ensure almost nine in ten sales will be free of the tax, compared to just 16% in 2019.
 
As any sale will need to take place within the stamp duty “holiday” which ends on the 31^st March 2021 so it is vital once a sale is agreed that the legal process happens as quickly as possible. We work closely with a number of local solicitors to best ensure this is the case.

Example saving on a property with a price of £750,000

Stamp Duty to pay is £12,500.00

The effective tax rate is 1.67 %

Pre-freeze stamp duty would have been £27,500.00

How is this calculated?

Stamp Duty is paid at different rates, depending on the purchase price. For example, someone subject to Stamp Duty buying a property for £550,000 would pay no tax on the value of the property up to £500,000 and 5% tax on the property value between £500,001 and £550,000. In this case, total liability for Stamp Duty would be £2,500 giving an effective tax rate of 0.45%. This is a saving of £15,000 based on the Stamp Duty rates that were in place prior to the 8th July 2020.

Those subject to the additional rates of stamp duty rates will pay an extra 3% on top of the relevant standard rate band. In this example that would represent an extra £16,500, meaning the total stamp duty would be £19,000 giving an effective tax rate of 3.45%.

If you are thinking of selling, now would be a very good time to start that process and we would be delighted to help. Give us a call on 01367 720070 for a confidential chat.