Wednesday March 12, 02:23 PM
UK BUDGET Frozen stamp duty threshold is a missed opportunity - Rightmove
LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling missed an opportunity to help first-time buyers at today's budget when he maintained the current thresholds for stamp duty, said Rightmove (LSE: GB00B0MFTM73.L
- news) , a property website.
Rightmove said only 16 pct of homes currently on the market are priced below the threshold of 125,000 stg that makes them exempt from the tax.
Increasing the threshold marginally could have helped thousands of first-time buyers secure a home, it argued.
'The Chancellor has missed a real opportunity to help first time buyers,' said Miles Shipside, commercial director at Rightmove.
'By increasing the stamp duty exemption threshold by a mere 4 pct to 130,000 stg, first time buyers would have had access to an extra 14,211 properties currently for sale,' he said.
In the budget, Darling announced an exemption on stamp duty for key workers like teachers and nurses who share the ownership of their home. This exemption will apply until buyers own 80 pct of the equity in their home.
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