Stamp Duty is stifling the housing market with buyers paying ever higher rates as prices climb upwards, experts warn.

Each purchaser is dragged into higher Stamp Duty bands as the value of homes rise, a development the data by Hamptons has highlighted.

And tax bills have rocketed at four times the rate of property prices as the ‘stealth raid’ hits buyers, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Shot up

Hamptons says the tax paid to buy a home in England has shot up 194% since 2015 from £1,557 to £4,572.

This figure is more than quadruple the 44% rise in home values during the same period, the agency says.

After mortgage affordability, Stamp Duty has probably got the biggest impact.”

Richard Donnell, Executive Director of Research at Zoopla, said: “After mortgage affordability, Stamp Duty has probably got the biggest impact on how many people might move home.

“And when you start hitting average homeowners who want to move for jobs or for family reasons, then you’re hitting labour mobility and you’re hitting the economy.

“When all of these changes were made to Stamp Duty, there was a narrative that it was to hit buyers purchasing million-pound homes. But this is not just catching millionaires anymore.”

Transactions fall

And Tom Bill, Head of UK Residential Research at Knight Frank, said: “Stamp Duty is clearly a perma-drag on the housing market.

“When you’re taxing transactions and that tax rate is rising, then logically you will have fewer of them.”

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