Budget 2021

March 3, 2021

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has just delivered his 2021 Budget Statement to Parliament in which he has implemented a number of measures that affect the housing market. Firstly what we were all expecting has just been confirmed, there will be an extension to the “Stamp Duty Holiday” on properties up to £500,000 until 30^th June 2021, with then a “softening” of the cliff-edge for property sales completing between 1st July – 31st September.

• Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) holiday extended till the end of June.
  • The nil rate band will then fall to £250,000 from July until the end of September.
  • It will then return back to the ‘normal’ of £125,000 on 1st October 2021.

Secondly, there will be a new Government-backed Help To Buy mortgage scheme in place to help all home buyers who are purchasing properties under £600,000.  This will mean these buyers will now only need to save a 5% deposit.

• 95% mortgages to help ‘Generation Buy’.Help to buy mortgage scheme to help all buyers purchasing properties under £600,000 to do so with a 5% deposit.

Finally, the great news for investors is that Capital Gains Tax has been frozen until 2026.

Claire Kendall, Partner at Richard Kendall Estate Agent makes her comment on the Budget.

It will only remain to be see the effects that this has on the already ‘bursting at the seams’ property market and for those who have been recently scrambling to complete on their house purchase prior to the previous date at the end of this month will know only too well the continued backlogs and growing pressure that our legal friends in the conveyancing sectors are experiencing.

However, the extension can only be a good thing.  Rightmove state that over 300,000 property transactions in England will benefit from extending the holiday to the end of June, and I’m sure many of our staff here at Richard Kendall Estate Agent will be happy that the pressure has lifted, for now in any event.

We also welcome the news for the Government backed 5% deposit mortgages to be introduce and the availability of this from all our major lenders.  Vince Hickman of our Mortgage partner ‘Mortgage Solutions of Wakefield’ believes that in previous times where such incentives have been brought forward, it has worked very well, bringing back first time buyers to the market who had previously been excluded.  Once the lenders start to roll this incentive out we do believe that this is a fantastic boost for the whole of the property market.

So all that’s left to say we’ve been helping people buy or sell homes throughout Wakefield and Pontefract for over 50 years and weathered many a storm, looks like we’ve only just begun on this next chapter.