19-July-2020

The Chancellor Rishi Sunk announced on 8th, July 2020 the new stamp duty holiday. The announcement came as a relief to save the housing economy and everyone welcomed the new stamp duty holiday as it would save them a lot of money. It encouraged potential buyers to move on and up the property ladder and it also helped to retain jobs in the real estate sector.

Property lawyers are now calling for the stamp duty holiday to be backdated until the start of the lockdown in March. Sarah Ryan, who is Head Of Private Client and Conveyancing at Simpson Millar, wants the holiday to be made retrospective to benefit “potentially hundreds of people”- particularly new build buyers and those who had been on the cusp of completion at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. She also added “there is no denying that for some, in particular those individuals, couples and families who have managed to complete on the purchase of their home either during lockdown, or in the immediate aftermath, this (stamp duty holiday) will come as a bitter blow! Sarah Ryan has written to the Housing Secretary to call for the scheme to be made retrospective so that those individuals can also benefit from the cost savings.

There is now a petition so far thousands of people have already signed it to try and abolish stamp duty for the eternity of the Covid-19 pandemic. The petition is calling for stamp duty to be refunded for all the transactions made during the lockdown between March and July, and for all stamp duty, irrespective of house prices, to be completely dropped until the Coronavirus crisis is over. It will need 10,000 signatures in order to receive an official government response and 100,000 to trigger a debate in parliament.