Will a stamp duty holiday revive the UK property market?

photo credit: Karl Gunnarsson

“We have not concluded what exactly we need to do” - these were the words of chancellor Alistair Darling this week, according to the Financial Times, when discussing possible methods of reviving the UK housing market.

Roughly translated, this breaks down to “god knows how we sort this”, but there has been no denial that a suspension of stamp duty, aimed at first-time buyers and property investors, could be on the cards.

If it does arrive, the pick-me-up is likely to apply to cheaper home sales, but could see a saving of some £2,500 for a £250,000 property. Thanks Darling. It’s easy to shrug shoulders and say “horse and stable door”, but maybe we should all be thankful for a clear sign the cabinet is finally preparing to get off its arse and have a go at jump-starting the market.

Fuel tax money down the sofa

In the US they’ve waited even longer to get their hands dirty and have only just passed a relief package designed to come to the aid of those facing foreclosure. The reasoning behind such dilly-dallying? In the UK alone the Treasury picks up more than £6 billion per year from stamp duty – quite a hole for any government to have to fill. Still, with all that extra dosh from fuel duty around of late, I’m sure they’ll find something down the back of the sofa big enough to plug the gap.

‘All that’s been said is nothing’

There you see, I’ve got ahead of myself, after all, the only thing that’s been said, it appears, is nothing. That is, someone asked about a stamp duty holiday and they didn’t deny it. Coupled with “we have not concluded what exactly we need to do”, it looks like there’s still a long way to go before a full-scale rescue operation.

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