Abolish Stamp Duty On Starter Homes

Soaring house prices mean first time buyers are banging their heads against a brick wall trying to get onto the property ladder. Now East Londonderry Ulster Unionist Assembly member David McClarty is calling for the threshold on the payment of stamp duty to be raised so that first time home buyers will find it easier to take their first step. The Westminister candidate says: “Many young people enter the housing market with a millstone of debt already hanging round their necks in the form of student loans. People in this category need the extra boost to enter the housing market which a raising of the threshold on the payment of stamp duty would make possible. “The one per cent levy of stamp duty becomes payable at £60,000 which is the roughly the price of many first time homes nowadays. That figure needs to be raised so that first time buyers do not have to pay stamp duty in addition to the already high costs of purchasing a house including legal and estate agents fees. “A more realistic limit in Northern Ireland would be £100,000. Nationally the limit would need to be over £160,000 to sort out this problem and since this is a revenue matter the threshold would have to be raised nationally,” said Mr McClarty. “One national bank has calculated that Gordon Brown’s failure to raise the £60,000 stamp duty threshold in line with house prices has caused the number of constituencies where first-time buyers are hit by the tax to soar from 79 in 1994 to 619 last year. Clearly this is an urgent issue. “Stamp Duty thresholds have remained unchanged since 1993 and we all know how much house prices have increased since then. This is an issue of fairness and equity which the Government needs to address urgently,” says Mr. McClarty.

08 Apr 2005 by Editor 0 comments