Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
Alastair Darling announced a change in stamp duty charged on house purchases in his last pre-election budget. The changes are not actually a cut but a change in the rates – removing stamp duty for first time buyers buying up to £250,000 but increasing the rates for purchases over £1m.
In practice for Scotland, however, this is effectively a cut for most if not all first time buyers. But will this change stimulate a pretty subdued market?
Property professionals seem mostly to feel the change may help somewhat.
“In the property market the last two years have been full of mostly bad news – so anything positive is a bit of a help. Certainly a big cost will be removed for many first time buyers – and that can only be good” says Sandy Macfarlane, mortgage broker at Caesar and Howie. “But I’d like to see the Scottish government letting us know how much money they are going to make available under the Lift scheme this year. That did help a lot of my clients last year and I hope it will do so again this year. On balance if Lift monies come available again from April – with the stamp duty cut now also in place – there should be more activity seen in the first time buyer sector.”
This view is confirmed by Sebastian Kedziora – who works with Caesar and Howie’s many Polish clients buying houses in Scotland and indeed in the UK. “A large number of would be Polish buyers didn’t get the loans they wanted under Lift last year – because of the rationing of funds. If new tranches of money become available under Lift this year I predict many more Poles will be buying houses in Scotland.”
See www.liftmortgage.co.uk
See www.kupdom.co.uk
Tags: Stamp Duty
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Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
Following on the good news of increased mortgage availability and decreasing mortgage rates, people wanting to buy a house in Scotland received another boost recently with Stamp Duty being suspended for one year on houses up to £175,000.
The Government hopes this measure will help kick start the housing market particularly at the first time buyer level, where the effects of the “credit crunch” hit hardest.
Caesar and Howie welcome the news. Senior Conveyancing partner Graham Irvine commented “it is no secret that the market is depressed at the moment – so anything which encourages buyers is a good thing. Savings of up to £1,750 on purchasing a house are not to be sniffed at nowadays”.
However, the firm feels that certain areas of Scotland will benefit much more than others. Managing partner David Borrowman feels the tax break will have uneven effects depending on where you live. “House price levels are very different across the country. For example Land register figures show that in Clackmannanshire the average house price is £130,266 whilst in Edinburgh it is £221,209. It therefore seems logical to me that in the lower house price areas a greater proportion of the houses for sale will benefit from the Stamp Duty cut. That should mean that markets where lower prices predominate will get a bigger boost than the markets where more expensive prices are the norm. From the various areas where we operate I would say Alloa, Falkirk, and parts of West Lothian, will benefit more for example than Edinburgh. But even allowing for that – we still welcome this news which should help get the market moving a little faster”.
Tags: Stamp Duty
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