Nearly 70,000 first-time buyers claim stamp duty relief
Stamp duty receipts continue to hold up, despite slower sales volumes and the introduction of reliefs for most first-time buyers in last year’s autumn budget, new figures from HMRC show.
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Quarterly receipts for Q1 2018 were £1.8bn, taking annual receipts for the 12 months to March to £9.3bn. This was down slightly from the £9.5bn collected through 2017, but notable for the fact it is still more than double annual revenue from five years ago.
Transaction volumes in the first quarter were 238,200, the lowest level since Q1 2013. The level of liable transactions – those where stamp duty was paid - fell across all price bands, with the larger falls being seen below £500,000, though this was mostly due to the introduction of first-time buyers’ relief late last year.
The relief means that first-time buyers purchasing a property up to £300,000 pay no stamp duty. Further relief is available for purchases up to £500,000 to help first-time buyers in more expensive locations such as London. Since the policy was announced, 69,000 transactions have claimed relief, with nearly 13,000 of those in the South East.
A further 18,000 first-time buyers claimed the relief in London and the East of England.
HMRC estimated that the total amount of stamp duty relieved was £159 million; half of which (49%) was seen in London and the South East.
