Specialist mortgages
Print friendly version 12 Mar 2008

Budget 2008: Stamp Duty

The Government has pledged to postpone stamp duty for those on shared ownership schemes until they own 80% of their home.

Today's Budget announcement by chancellor Alistair Darling, contained a number of points concerning affordable housing. In addition to suspending Stamp Duty payments for those on shared ownership schemes until they own 80% of their property, Darling also pledged to extend key worker shared equity schemes to people who can afford to buy 50% of a property. Previously, potential homeowners had to be able to afford 75% of the property in question to participate in the scheme.

Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents, criticised the Government's lack of action on Stamp Duty in not rolling out cuts in the tax to all first-time buyers. He said: "Recent reports show that the average stamp duty bill for first-time buyers has almost doubled over the last five years and total stamp duty revenue from residential property sales in the UK rose by 40% in 2006/07 to a record £6.4bn. This is taxation gone mad!

"This government needs to realise that the housing market is slowing and the gravy train is over. This was an opportunity for the Chancellor to give the housing market the boost it really needs to keep the market moving but he has failed the British homeowner again."

Click here to calculate your mortgage fees

STAY UP TO DATE: Subscribe to email alerts Subscribe to RSS

COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE:

There aren’t any comments for this article yet

Login to add a comment

Need to register? Click Here









Clicks and mortar

Rob Davies explains how best to use the Internet to get a good mortgage deal


Read on...

The year ahead

Michael White of Emailmortgages.com looks at what is in store for the mortgage and housing markets in 2010
Read on...

Your Mortgage magazine

Your Mortgage coverThe January/February 2010 issue of Your Mortgage is on sale now. In it we look at what's in store for the mortgage and housing markets this year; we examine the Government schemes available to help first-time buyers, advise on coping with negative equity and analyse buying property in Italy. We also profile the winners of our annual Your Mortgage Awards. Get your copy for the latest news, information and help.

Your Mortgage Awards

Your Mortgage Awards The Your Mortgage Awards aim to reward those lenders that have excelled in providing innovative and competitive products. Widely regarded as the UK's definitive consumer mortgage awards, the Your Mortgage Awards have now been running for 20 years.

Read about all the winners from the 2009-2010 awards in our e-magazine
Your Money logo
Latest news from Your Money

Visit Your Money website
Photo of Paula John, Editor In Chief of Your Mortgage Magazine
Visit the mortgage news section for all the latest developments affecting the UK property market.

Use our range of mortgage calculators to work out how much you could borrow.
divider

Online Poll

divider
divider
divider

Sponsored Links.

-->