Week 77: Stamp Duty Holiday Finale

Hello good people of the world, here's to another day and another challenge. The stamp duty holiday is coming to an end and we are trying to get our property ready before this date to try and get the best possible return for all the effort we put in to get it ready and believe me a lot of effort has gone in. It felt like we were building from scratch with the amount of digging we did.  According to estate agents properties are flying off the shelves because there is no stamp duty to pay for properties up to the value of £500K. However, this comes to an end at the end of June. Thereafter any properties up to the value of £250K will be exempt until the end of September. So you can imagine why people are in a rush to buy property and also to sell property. One thing got me thinking, even though there is no stamp duty to pay the properties are being sold for a lot more than what they would normally go for.

For example, properties on one particular road don't usually go above £180K but since the stamp duty holiday a couple of houses have sold for £230K to the amazement of the people on the road, including the sellers. If there was stamp duty to be paid then this would not have gone above £180K. Meaning it was better to have paid the stamp duty rather than the £50K over the usual rate, i.e. paying £1,100 (2% stamp duty). So I don't know if it's a good thing, maybe there is something that I’m missing but in some circumstances it is better to pay the stamp duty than the extra few thousand in house price rises. As a business you’re still having to pay the 3% on your purchase regardless, on top of the regular tax, so there wasn’t really a holiday for us. So looking ahead after September the ‘Return of Stamp Duty’ the rates will revert back to what they were so if you’re looking to buy a property after this date then below is what you can expect to pay,

Properties up to £125K you pay 0%

Properties between: 

£125K to £250K you pay 2% 

£250K to £925K you pay 5%

£925K to £1.5M you pay 10%

Over £1.5M you pay 12%

However, if you’re a first time buyer you still pay 0% on a property if it's up to £300K and anything above this amount up to £500K you pay 5%. The property we’re working on will be sold below £250K, so if you’re a first time buyer then this will be the perfect home for you as there is no stamp duty to pay plus everything is/will be completed to the highest standard, that was my little plug, sorry. Something that is very worrying to me is that solicitors are very busy at this moment in time with all the cases they are dealing with as people are rushing to buy and sell. Solicitors are slow anyway, now they have an excuse to slow down even more. We asked for the valuer to come out to the property so we can try and extract some money, but we were told that he is booked up for another three weeks, what!!!

Three weeks??? He should have come out within a week like how he did last time. So now I’m having to call in some favors from friends and family to get part of the refurbishment cost so the work doesn’t stop. We need the builders to continue so we meet the deadline. We have two deadlines, one for the bridging company which is 12 August 21 and one for the stamp duty holiday ending which is 30 September 21. To top all this up we have to get the mortgage paperwork started so we can meet the deadline and refinance to pay everyone back (which by the way could take 8 weeks). Wow this is making my head spin just thinking about it. But it’s all good as it brings out the creative side in you making you resilient and gets you ready for your next project. The next challenge.