Stamp Duty Land Tax is a tax payable by the purchaser to HMRC. Your solicitor will usually handle this for you and send it to HMRC on your behalf.
The Government recently announced great news for homebuyers – stamp duty, the amount of tax a buyer pays the Government when purchasing a home, has been cut for themajority of buyers. Buyers of an average priced home, the UK average is £275,000, will now pay £4,500 less in stamp duty than they would have donebefore the announcement. It means buyers will be able to put that saving towards their deposit or even some improvements which must be good for thehousing market and the economy.
A first time buyer buying at £150,000 now pays only one third of what they would have had to pay, £500 instead of £1500.
A home buyer buying at £2 million however pays 50% more in stamp duty than they would have done previously, now paying £153,750 in tax rather than the £100,000 theywould have paid in the old system.
Under the old system, you used to pay 1% tax on the value up to £250,000 but buying a property for over £250,000 and you’d pay 3% on the whole amount i.e. £250,000purchase was £2,500 in tax but £251,000 means you had to pay £7,530.
The tables below set out the new charging structure up to date from 1st March 2016.
For the most up to date information please visit the UK Government website
here.
