Stamp duty holiday to be extended until end of June, claims leak

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to announced a stamp duty extension to the end of June in his budget speech next week, it has been leaked. The Times has reported this morning that Sunak wants to keep the property market in good shape as the economy emerges from its Covid deep freeze. This will be good news for the thousands sales currently going through the conveyancing process at the moment. Rightmove estimates an additional 300,000 property transactions in England could benefit from the tax saving of an extended holiday, based on previous HMRC data. “Currently, Rightmove estimates that 100,000 buyers who agreed a purchase last year are set to lose out, if the deadline stays as 31st March,” a spokesperson says. Roadmap Moving the stamp duty holiday ‘cliff face’ to June 30th would also align the market with the final easing or restrictions announced by Boris Johnson in his roadmap announcement on Monday. The leaked announcement ahead of the 3rd March budget announcement also suggests that the Ministers have been listening to the industry. Agents, conveyancers, surveyors, lenders and removal firms have all been warning since the New Year that the logjams in the sales progression process were due to…