loveMONEY campaign: make Stamp Duty fairer for buyers
Thousands are being unfairly hit by the additional Stamp Duty charge, which could affect their ability to buy a new home.
loveMONEY is calling on the Treasury to make a simple amendment to Stamp Duty to avoid thousands of home buyers being unfairly caught out by the additional Stamp Duty charge.
The Government recently introduced new rules designed to penalise landlords and those with more than one home with an extra Stamp Duty charge of 3% on top of the normal bill.
But many homeowners looking to buy a new home are being hit with the charge if they haven’t already sold their existing home when they buy their new home.
There’s no question of them losing the money forever; they can apply for a refund as long as they sell the original home within three years.
However, as we point out here, many property analysts say being forced to pay the additional rate upfront is causing real difficulties among buyers – and preventing some people from being able to snap up their dream home.
We don’t think this situation is fair, so we want to see the Treasury delay the need to pay the additional 3% Stamp Duty if a buyer can prove they are trying to sell their first home – with the tax only needing to be paid if they haven't sold it within a fixed period.
If you agree, why not sign our petition, which you can see at the end of this article. It’s early days, but we’ve already had a few people getting in touch on Change.org to say they support the cause. The screengrab below shows a couple of them.
When we ran our article discussing this issue at the weekend, LoveMONEY regular Basia02a also shared their 2p on the matter, stating:
“Whoever came up with disastrous idea never gave a second thought to the many people who don’t swap houses on the same day, causing misery and stress to hundreds”
Agree? Sign the petition!
Disagree? Please do let us know why in the comments section below. Ultimately we’re doing this with loveMONEY readers’ interests in mind.
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Comments
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It's a necessary consequence of this tax that it is collected in this way, although it must add to the stress of chains collapsing and things like that. It may be that the real remedy is to have much higher continuing taxation of second homes and punitive taxation of unoccupied homes.
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Perhaps there could be a grace period before the tax kicks in. Say, 60 calendar days? It's bad enough being caught in the middle of a chain all playing musical chairs on the same day. If one person defaults, you're all up the creek, sans paddle. This is at a time when you've just signed up for the biggest debt of your life. Petition signed. Tick.
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Why is it unfair ? If you have more than 1 home in ownership, the additional 3% has to be paid upon the second purchase. That's what the rules are. Yep, we lost a sale last year as the purchasers hadn't done their calculations, c'est la vie. The eventual purchaser, ( also not selling their existing property) HAD done their calculations, and sale went through.
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22 August 2017