Stamp duty holiday 'has not benefited all buyers'

Friday, November 20th 2009

The stamp duty holiday has not helped all homebuyers in the UK, it has been claimed.

According to Zoopla.co.uk, less than a quarter of the people expected to benefit from the scheme have actually taken advantage of the holiday.

Just 115,447 buyers have been able to avoid paying stamp duty on properties worth between £125,000 and £175,000 since the initiative came into effect in September last year.

Those in London have benefited the least from the holiday, while buyers in the south-west have been the most able to take advantage of it. The scheme will end next month.

"Rather than ending the stamp duty holiday, the government should seriously consider extending it by making first-time buyers permanently exempt and by giving others the ability to defer payment," commented Nicholas Leeming, commercial director for Zoopla.co.uk.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors recently warned that ending the stamp duty holiday could adversely affect those regions of the UK where the property market is already lagging behind the rest of the country.