News
Stamp Duty - the return
In September 2008, as a way to stimulate the moribund property market, the UK government scrapped stamp duty on any property priced under £175,000. But with the property market now looking much healthier, the normal stamp duty threshold is due to return on 1st January 2010.
From then, buyers will once again be required to pay 1% stamp duty on all properties priced between £125,000 and £250,000. For properties worth £250,001 to £500,000 the tax is 3% and for those over £500,000 it is 4%.
As the government is short of money, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is unlikely to extend the stamp duty holiday beyond the end of this year. Indeed, some say he could be considering a new stamp duty threshold of 5% for the most expensive properties. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have proposed a ‘Mansion Tax’, whereby owners of houses worth more than £1 million would have to pay an annual tax of 0.5% of the value of their properties.
On a more positive note, in July the number of loans to homebuyers showed annual growth for the first time in two years, and house prices have now recovered to the same level as a year ago.
Research by the Nationwide Building Society indicates that over the past three months property prices have risen in every single region of the UK. The Outer South East Region (which incorporates Chichester) has experienced a 4.1% increase. The chief economist at Nationwide says that these increases, consistent with better economic times, “suggest that the most intense phase of the recession and financial crisis has probably passed”.
Please contact Roger Stone at Chichester or Sarah Evans at Selsey for more information.