There was little of direct benefit for the letting industry from yesterday's Budget with many industry observers saying the Chancellor missed opportunities to improve the market.
The Chancellor confirmed the extension of the Help To Buy equity loan scheme, promised £500m in help for small and medium sized house builders, and predicted an additional 200,000 new homes would be built by 2020.
He also increased the catch' of the 15 per cent stamp duty on homes purchased through off-shore companies or corporate envelopes' - instead of this high duty applying for homes above £2m, it now applies above £500,000. This also extends the annual charge on owners who leave these properties unoccupied, which may persuade at least some of them to let them.
But Osborne did not reform stamp duty more fundamentally to end the steep thresholds' against which individual landlords and lettings industry bodies have been lobbying for some years.
Stamp Duty is now a significant burden on virtually every house buyer and, at the key points of £250,000 and £500,000 causes a major distortion on the market and significant hardship to those whose properties are worth up to 10% or so more than threshold amounts says Andrew Turner of Smiths Gore.
Nor did the Chancellor announce measures to directly encourage more investment in Build To Rent or smaller level buy to let investment.
.png)
Comments