News

Budget 2024:

Labour Budget, November 2024 

Changing Home Director Jeremy Jordan suggests movers may wish to act quickly prior to stamp duty changes...  

Last week Rachel Reeves delivered her much awaited Autumn budget against a backdrop of potential high mortgage rates and a promise of huge investment into house building nationally.

As it was, the key areas in our sector focused on building, CGT and stamp duty:

• £500 million investment into the new house building plan. New sites are planned across the country including Liverpool central docks with 2,000 new homes to transform the waterfront.
• Capital Gains tax on residential property is unchanged.
• Stamp surcharge on buying second homes (eg landlords buying properties to let) will rise from 31 October from 3% to 5% of the purchase price.
• No mention of the extension to the current stamp duty relief for first time buyers that is due to end in March 2025. If this happens, the threshold at which first time buyers are likely to pay stamp duty will drop from £425,000 to £300,000.
• The rate at which stamp duty is charged for home-movers is set to fall from £250,000 to £125,000, meaning a significant increase in stamp duty payment. Given the current national average is 152 days to complete a property transaction, this could mean agreeing a sale about now to complete prior to the end of March. Home movers may want to act quickly to ensure transactions are agreed in time to benefit form the current relief window.ay