A significant number of property deals are set to fall through as thousands of first-time and other buyers fail to complete before the 31 March stamp duty deadline.

That’s the warning from mortgage brokers as buyers ‘bombard’ solicitors and agents with messages trying to get their deals over the line.

The ‘nil rate’ band for home movers will drop from £250,000 back to £125,000 from 1 April, and for first-time buyers, the threshold will go down from £425,000 to £300,000.

Failure to complete

Now, more than 120,000 buyers face the Stamp Duty hike as a third of the total with offers accepted will fail to complete in time, according to TwentyCi data analysed by Hamptons, the Daily Telegraph reports.

And some first-time buyers are opting for auctions to pick up properties, reports suggested earlier this month, as they run out of time to purchase through estate agents ahead of the Stamp Duty cut-off.

It is a huge amount of additional money that many first-time buyers will need to find.”

Chris Sykes, Technical Director and Senior Mortgage Consultant at mortgage brokers Private Finance, says: “We could well also see fall-throughs. It is a huge amount of additional money that many first-time buyers will need to find.

“It could mean years of additional saving to buy a property, or it could mean that they need to borrow at a higher loan to value which could potentially cost them thousands.”

Bombarding solicitors

Nina Harrison, London Specialist at Haringtons, says first-time buyers are “bombarding their solicitors and agents with non-stop WhatsApp messages to expedite the process”.

Aneisha Beveridge, Head of Research at Hamptons, warns that first-time buyers are more likely to miss the deadline because they tend to buy leasehold flats, which take longer to complete.

And Hamish Allan, Associate Director at Winkworth, says: “Buyers have factored in an equivalent stamp reduction or at least pre-agreed to split the additional stamp cost if the deadline isn’t met due to complications on the vendor’s side.”