Alistair Darling?s speech this week left first-time buyers and estate agents confused and perplexed, according to an article from Times Online. The Treasury website went down as a number of visitors worriedly perused the small print to ease their confusion.
Questions that people were asking themselves were: ?What defines a first-time buyer??, ?What deadlines are in place to avoid paying the new 5 per cent rate??, and, ?For homes under ?250,000 will stamp duty be imposed in two years? time??
While the answer to the last two questions is simply ?no?, nevertheless sales of houses valued at more than ?1 million were completed hastily on Wednesday afternoon as buyers mistakenly thought that the 5 per cent rate would be applied that night. Indeed, one seller at estate agent John D Wood in Battersea dropped his price to below ?1 million from ?1,048,000 in case the 5 per cent rate would be applied so soon.
Savills? head of research Lucien Cook in Fulham said: ?I don?t think any of us could really believe it when we saw it. We were thinking ?will this ever take effect?? But since then the Tories have said that they have no objection.?
Mr Cook added that it was key as to whether the increase would be maintained were there to be a change of government. Reconfirmation of the price increase would mitigate against forecasts of easing of prime market values for this year, which would in turn suppress price increases in subsequent years.
The Chancellor?s speech caused homeowners to visit property sites in search of properties valued at more than ?1 million, and created extremely high traffic levels.
