Government Announces Stamp Duty Holiday

As you may have heard, the Government has today announced changes to the stamp duty payable in England and Northern Ireland. This means reduced rates of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) will apply for residential properties purchased from 8 July 2020 until 31 March 2021 inclusive.

What are the changes?

There will be no stamp duty payable on properties purchased for less than £500,000. You will only start to pay SDLT on the amount that you pay for the property above £500,000. These rates apply whether you are buying your first home or have owned property before.

If you are purchasing an additional property, the current 3% higher rate still applies on top of the revised standard rates above.

The full Government guidance and SDLT calculator can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/stamp-duty-land-tax-temporary-reduced-rates

What does this mean for me?

If your property purchase is currently progressing with us, you don’t need to contact us. Your legal team will make the appropriate adjustments to your completion statement in due course to ensure you benefit from the new rates. Don’t worry if your initial quote from us shows an amount payable for stamp duty, this is only a guide and the actual amount payable will be calculated based on the rates at the time you reach completion.

Upon completion we will still need to make a submission to the HMRC on your behalf, even if no actual SDLT is payable, therefore the Stamp Duty Return fee shown on your quote will still be charged.

We appreciate you may still have further questions about the new rates and how they will affect your property transaction. In order that we can prioritise those clients that are due to complete imminently, please email your questions to our team and we’ll come back to you as soon as we can.