The Conveyancing Association has urged George Osborne not to meddle with the housing market again in next week’s Budget.
The Conveyancing Association has urged George Osborne not to meddle with the housing market again in next week’s Budget.
With the UK set for an uncertain few months ahead of the EU referendum vote on 23 June, and the market having to cope with the 3% stamp duty surcharge coming into force from April 1, the association’s chairman Eddie Goldsmith told the Chancellor to let it be.
Goldsmith said: “We believe the Chancellor should allow the market time to breathe – in the CA’s view it is much better served by supporting steady transaction numbers, rather than the artificially-created spikes that have been far too prevalent.
“The last three months of increased buy-to-let transactions being a case in point. Instead, we would like to see the status quo – post-April – maintained and allow us to plan and prepare our resources adequately based on the market itself rather than deal with further uncertainty generated by ongoing intervention.”
The Conveyancing Association criticised the 3% stamp duty surcharge, since the industry will only have access to the final rules next week yet will be expected to implement them from the start of April. It also saw the 15 property exemption to the new stamp duty rules as arbitrary.
From 2017 to 2020 the amount of mortgage tax relief landlords can claim back will be cut from 45% to 20% – which seems another bone of contention for the association and Goldsmith.
Goldsmith added: “Not only would we like to see these additional stamp duty charges dropped, or at the very least, watered down but we feel any further change in the UK housing market, unless positively focused on areas like helping to increase property supply or supporting first-time buyers, will only add to the instability we (and many others) will have to cope with.
“Unsurprisingly, the conveyancing market is looking for a period of stability but I suspect we won’t be getting that post-next week’s Budget.
“The publication of the final rules for extra stamp duty charges on additional properties will be made available and one can’t help think there is likely to be some considerable confusion around them, not forgetting the fact of course that the conveyancing industry will have to cope with these changes from the start of April. The small amount of time this provides firms to ready themselves and to ensure all stakeholders in the market are clear on these new rules is, quite frankly, ludicrous.”
Paul Saunders, head of residential conveyancing at CA member, Shakespeare Martineau, added: “I hope that the government will not continue its trend to disincentivise buy-to-let landlords as we do not know until after the 1st April what damage this could cause to the housing market.”
