{"id":2757,"date":"2021-02-22T06:19:19","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T06:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.propertista.co.uk\/?p=2757"},"modified":"2021-02-19T08:20:57","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T08:20:57","slug":"concerns-rise-as-stamp-duty-holiday-cliff-edge-nears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.propertista.co.uk\/concerns-rise-as-stamp-duty-holiday-cliff-edge-nears\/","title":{"rendered":"Concerns Rise as Stamp Duty Holiday Cliff Edge Nears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around 100,000 homebuyers will not complete their property purchases before the impending Stamp Duty Holiday deadline on 31 March and will be hit with bigger than expected tax bills as a result. This will lead to a large number of sales falling through, industry experts predict.<\/p>\n

Rightmove, one of the UK\u2019s leading property portals, currently estimates that 100,000 buyers who agreed a purchase last year are set to miss out if the current stamp duty discount period \u2018cliff-edge\u2019 is not extended from the next month\u2019s deadline of the 31st<\/sup>\u00a0March.<\/p>\n

There is currently a huge backlog of property sales stuck in a logjam of conveyancing and mortgage delays due to the popularity of the Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) discount<\/a>\u00a0initiative. This is because homebuyers who complete before the deadline can save \u00a31000s on their purchase costs. In fact, according to Rightmove, there are an estimated 412,000 sales still currently in the legal process that were agreed last year across Great Britain.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all last minute deals that are stuck in the logjam either, as Rightmove\u2019s property expert Tim Bannister explains:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cThe delays we\u2019ve seen in the home-moving process have been through no fault of the buyers and sellers who agreed a sale last year and who are now desperately trying to get their deals over the line. The delays have been a result of the huge number trying to go through, along with the many challenges of the people involved in the process working from home.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Added to Rightmove\u2019s predictions, signs that the Stamp Duty Holiday cliff edge will hit the property market hard have also been revealed by the house price index that uses data to predict house price changes early, before purchases have completed. House move price comparison website Reallymoving\u2019s analysis of almost 21,000 conveyancing quote forms completed over the last three months shows that house prices are set to drop sharply in April.<\/p>\n

According to Reallymoving\u2019s early snapshot data, which up to now has closely tracked UK Land Registry Price Paid data, shows average house prices in England and Wales will fall by 4.1 per cent in April, in \u2018the first clear glimpse of the stamp duty holiday cliff edge and its impact on the value of deals already agreed by buyers and sellers\u2019.<\/p>\n

According to their analysis, as the likelihood of meeting the deadline has decreased, so have prices, with buyers in January \u2018clearly factoring in the cost of a stamp duty bill\u2019, reducing their affordability and the price they\u2019re willing to pay.<\/p>\n

Reallymoving is seeing signs that house prices are rapidly readjusting back down to levels seen twelve months ago, as the stamp duty holiday end looms and the post-lockdown rush to move home subsides, with prices falling by 2.5 per cent in February, 2.6 per cent in March and 4.1 per cent in April 2021. It predicts, homebuyers who agreed deals earlier and may not complete in time are likely to attempt to renegotiate, or split the cost across the chain, further impacting prices.<\/p>\n

In addition, consumer confidence is being impacted by uncertainty over the end of the current national lockdown \u2013 and concern over job losses when the furlough scheme finally ends.<\/p>\n

Rob Houghton, CEO of reallymoving, comments:\u00a0\u201cNow, for the first time, we can see the early impact of the end of the stamp duty holiday on prices, with buyers in January agreeing to pay less as they factor in the cost of a tax bill.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOthers who agreed deals earlier will still be hoping to make the deadline, and it\u2019s likely we\u2019ll see a sharp rise in fall- throughs in early April, as well as gazundering, which could impact final sale prices further if sellers are agreeable to spreading the cost \u2013 and many will be, rather than see their deal fall flat.”<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rumoured six week stamp duty holiday extension could save buyers up to \u00a31 billion<\/strong><\/h3>\n

However, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon for homebuyers stuck in the transaction logjam if the rumoured six-week extension to the STLT holiday<\/a> is true. Rightmove estimates that if the stamp duty holiday deadline was extended for the rumoured six weeks, it would mean between 120,000 and 160,000 additional property transactions in England could benefit from the SDLT discount, saving homebuyers a potential \u00a31 billion.<\/p>\n

The extension would also mean the vast majority of sales that were agreed by the end of 2020 would complete in time to save on stamp duty.<\/p>\n

Rightmove\u2019s property expert Tim Bannister said:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cWe know the stamp duty holiday was intended as a temporary stimulus for the market, but the delays we\u2019ve seen in the home-moving process have been through no fault of the buyers and sellers who agreed a sale last year and who are now desperately trying to get their deals over the line. If there was a six week extension it should give the majority of the sales from last year the chance to complete in time.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We agree, a short extension to the SDLT holiday would come as a welcome relief to many homebuyers who are desperately trying to get their purchase through the conveyancing logjam.<\/p>\n

But will the rumoured extension actually happen?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around 100,000 homebuyers will not complete their property purchases before the impending Stamp Duty Holiday deadline on 31 March and will be hit with bigger than expected tax bills as a result. This will lead to a large number of sales falling through, industry experts predict. Rightmove, one of the UK\u2019s leading property portals, currently …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2758,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,45],"tags":[91,105,180],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertista.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertista.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertista.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertista.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertista.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertista.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertista.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertista.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertista.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertista.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}