Stamp duty holiday deadline extended

Rishi Sunak has announced an extension of the stamp duty holiday until the end of June in the budget with lower rates until the end of September. This will be welcomed by those buying a home who have been very worried about having to pay up to £15k extra on their purchase if they don’t complete in time. The extension will likely cause another mini-surge of activity as buyers and sellers rush to take advantage of the savings. With transactions taking on average 4 months.

The news will hopefully come as a relief to those buyers and sellers who have been desperately trying to get their sale completed in time to meet the previous deadline of 31st March.

What is the temporary stamp duty holiday? 

The temporary stamp duty holiday, first announced by the government on 8th July last year, means that if you are buying a home up to the value of £500,000 you will not pay any stamp duty.

The extension means you now have until 30th June to complete on the purchase to make the stamp duty saving.

Then, to smooth the transition back to normal, the nil rate band will be £250,000, double its standard level, until the end of September.

It will return to the usual threshold of £125,000 on 1st October.