Whatever Chancellor Rishi Sunak says on March 3^rd during his Spring budget, there are going to be thousands of unhappy property buyers left out by his stamp duty holiday whether it’s extended or not.

That’s the conclusion of the latest research. It pinpoints how of the 370,000 people who agreed a sale before the New Year, some 171,372 will not complete by 31^st March, and suggests this could lead to a wave of fall-throughs.

Also, if the Chancellor does extend the holiday by six weeks, it will only help 55,257 of those buyers.

Among those who had their offers accepted after January 1^st, only 37,743 will benefit from an extension.

The research, by data company TwentyCI, shows that the total number of properties currently in sales progression – defined as those properties in-between having a sale agreed and completion – is 580,699 and that overall some 374,203 buyers will not have completed by 31^st March.

“Having reported on this topic for some time, clearly, we welcome any intervention by the Chancellor to extend the stamp duty holiday end date and ensure that buyers with in-flight transactions can still benefit from these savings” says Ian Lancaster, CEO of TwentyCI (pictured).

“But, as you can see, there are still a substantial number of transactions that will be affected even by a revised ‘cliff edge’ date.”

His company is not the only one to be throwing data at the Chancellor.

Knight Franks says 87% of its clients want an extension to the stamp duty holiday, and sales progression platform Mio says the stamp duty changes are its agents’ key concern for 2021 rather than Covid or Brexit.