Stewart Lilly, president of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), has called on Chancellor Alistair Darling to revise the thresholds at which the duty is levied to make it fairer on the majority of households, especially for first-time buyers.
Lilly believed that properties under £200,000 should be exempt from charge, with properties under £300,000 levied at 1 per cent; properties under £450,000 should be levied at 2 per cent and those up to £1 million levied 3 per cent.
The levy would then rise to 4 per cent on properties up to £2 million and be set at 4.5 per cent on all properties above £2 million.
Lilly commented: “The government needs to be aware that with inflation rising consumers need a helping hand. We would like to see a scale of Stamp Duty that reflects the house price inflation in recent years.”
Lilly also called for a review of the Capital Gains Tax obligations for buy-to-let landlords, to help what he called the ‘back-bone of the private rented sector’.
Tanya Jackson, media relations manager at Yorkshire Building Society, said: “This is coming more from the estate agents as they are at the sharp end of things in the market, but first-time buyers have a lot of extra costs to meet when it comes to buying a property so whether there is the potential for a payment holiday or a raising of the threshold that would give them the benefit and we are in favour of it.”
