Halifax Publishes New Stamp Duty Report

A recent research carried out by Halifax showed that a 140% increase in UK house prices registered in the past decade resulted in a 500% rise in the number of homeowners qualifying for the stamp duty tax.

For example, in 2010 the proportion of homeowners whose properties were valued at £250,000 reached 26%. In 2000, this figure only stood at 5%.

According to Halifax, the approximate number of properties valued at over the £250,000 threshold currently stands at 5 million. In 2000, this figure stood at 875,000.

Let us remind that the thresholds, which were introduced in 1997, remained unchanged since that time regardless of the 140% increase in UK house prices.

According to Halifax, the threshold would now stand at £600,000 should the UK government increase it in line with price inflation.

Halifax also said that the government’s revenue from the stamp duty tax fell in the past 2 years as a result of the economic downturn, which led to a decline in house prices and transaction levels.