Stamp duty deadline – Buy-to-let

Landlord research – undertaken by BVA BDRC and carried out between December and January with the results based on 846 online interviews – found landlords seemed confident about their ability to complete purchases before the stamp duty deadline. Only 14% said they would abort their transaction if completion did not look achievable. Of those landlords intending to purchase in Q1, 65% said they were very or quite confident they would complete by the 31 March.

When asked whether they believed the government would extend the deadline, 28% said yes, while 31% disagreed, although the questions were asked before the recent Parliamentary debate on the stamp duty holiday.

There has been growing industry support for a tapering of the deadline to allow those already within the purchase process to complete beyond the deadline date but still secure the tax saving.

Only 4% of those surveyed said they were purchasing because of the availability of the stamp duty holiday. Meanwhile, 25% of those intending to purchase in 2021 said they were holding off buying as they believed property prices were currently inflated.

The most recent house price index from Nationwide for January revealed that prices had dropped slightly by 0.3% month-on-month, and annual house price growth had slowed from 7.3% to 6.4%.

There are a number of positive results to come out of our exclusive research, not least landlords’ continued intention to keep on purchasing after the deadline has passed, and the news that many landlords will not abort their transactions if there is no extension and they look unlikely to complete by the 31 March.

If you wish to review your current or future mortgage planning do call one of our fully qualified independent advisers. We look forward to helping you.