12th February 2025 ❘

Stamp Duty holiday ending soon

Stamp Duty holiday ending soon

Stamp Duty holiday ending soon…

The temporary cut to Stamp Duty Land Tax is coming to end an end on the 31st of March 2025, so if you have a house purchase underway, it’s worth keeping this date in mind.

You must pay Stamp Duty if you buy a property or land over a certain price. At the moment, Stamp Duty starts to apply when you buy a residential property that costs £250,000 or more, but from the 1st of April this threshold will be lowered to £125,000. So, if you complete your purchase of a £249,999 residential property on the 31st of March there will be no Stamp Duty to pay, but if you complete on the 1st of April, you’ll owe a Stamp Duty payment of £2,500.

Please note, this is different for second home owners and companies.

With the average house purchase taking 12-16 weeks to complete (and sometimes longer), if your purchase isn’t already underway then there’s not much you can do to meet the holiday deadline, but if you already have the ball rolling with your purchase it could be worth having a conversation with your Solicitor about what can be done to meet the deadline.

Going to miss the deadline? Fear not…

Naturally you’re going to want to try and meet that March deadline and make the most of the Stamp Duty Holiday, but if this just isn’t possible, savings could be found in other ways…

  • Extra time waiting for your purchase to go through could be extra time saving your deposit – so you could look at putting down a larger deposit on your new home which might lead to lower mortgage rates and monthly payments.
  • Recently, the Bank of England cut interest rates from 4.75% to 4.5% – their lowest level for 18 months. There’s always the possibility that in the current economy, there could be a further change to mortgage interest rates. Might a delay on completing your purchase lead to savings over the mortgage term with a lower rate?
  • The average UK monthly mortgage payment is £1202, so if you don’t yet pay for a mortgage, a couple of months’ delay could equate to the stamp duty saving.

It is important to also highlight the change in first time buyer relief: The first time buyer threshold will drop from £425,000 to £300,000 and the maximum purchase price that this relief can be available for reduces from a purchase price of £625,000 to £500,000.

Our Residential Conveyancing team is always on hand to support you with your property purchase and is happy to advise our clients on issues like the above. You can find out more about it here or to get in touch, please call 01228 552222 or email hello@burnetts.co.uk.