Spring Budget 2021: Instant Reaction

Ironic, perhaps, that a delayed Budget should deliver a delayed stamp duty holiday deadline, which does little more than delaying the inevitable reality that awaits the market when the reprieve does finally end.

We surveyed around 3,700 homebuyers late in January and found that 39% of them would need to pull out of their purchase if their sale didn't complete before the deadline.

Obviously agents will work to salvage many of those sales, but it'll still leave a lot to fall through. Not to mention the pressure it keeps solicitors under in the mean time.

The announcement yesterday didn't do anything to change this. Instead, the Government simply elected to push the cliff edge back for 3 months...

A alternative way of extending the stamp duty deadline

If the Government wanted to extend the stamp duty saving, it seems like it would've at least made more sense to say "sales agreed prior to this date" will get the stamp duty saving, rather than "sales completing prior to this date" will get the stamp duty saving.

This would have eased a lot of pressure on very strained solicitors, and would still have been easy to police.

Of course, whether or not this extension is a good thing is a whole other question - one we've written about here. House prices already at record highs so it's not clear to us that more tax incentives to pump them up further really makes sense...

One thing's for sure though: Those brave enough to tackle the huge market delays already being seen should do so now as there are very dark clouds building in June. Our service, which enables homeowners to sell their house fast to us in a swift and direct sale has already had a spike in enquiries this year, as sellers look to sidestep the current backlogs.

While a staggered return to normality is likely to reduce the impact of the current cliff edge, it’s still likely to bring a shower of transaction fall throughs and house price decline down on the market.