Yorkshire Building Society's reaction to the 2021 budget statement

Commenting on today’s Budget:

Stamp Duty

Nitesh Patel, Strategic Economist at Yorkshire Building Society, said:

Last year, we called for the Government to taper the Stamp Duty holiday to ensure home buyers who had agreed sales and mortgages but were yet to complete their purchases, were not caught out with an unexpected bill when the policy came to a dead stop at the end of March.

We welcome the news the Government is extending the Stamp Duty holiday on purchases up to £500,000 to 30 June,  as well as adding additional three months’ where  there is no tax to pay on purchases up to £250,000 to the end of September, as this will help a large proportion of sales.

However, the hard stop scheduled at the end of September may just kick the can down the road for some buyers. Those who are mid-transaction may well face a similar situation of being confronted with an unexpected tax bill of thousands of pounds when the extension comes to an end, as well as disincentivising higher-value purchases.

Whilst successive governments had continued to increase the tax burden on the higher end of the market the lowest threshold for Stamp Duty had not increased since 2006, house prices have increased, on average, by 55% during that time. If the lowest Stamp Duty price threshold had been raised in line with house price inflation, no Stamp Duty would be paid on properties up to £195,000. This has disadvantaged those looking to move home to accommodate growing families, who have had to pay comparatively higher levels of tax, compared with 15 years ago, to purchase a similar property.

Mortgage guarantee scheme

Ben Merritt, senior mortgage manager at Yorkshire Building Society said:

We’re keen to support home-buyers who need higher deposit mortgages, including many first-time buyers. It’s been a difficult market for those with smaller deposits, as many lenders stopped offering mortgages with 10%

deposits or lower.

 

We were one of the first lenders to go back into the 10% deposit mortgage market and have remained there for as long as our service levels have allowed us too, which meant we helped a record number of first-time buyers last year.

 

We therefore welcome the Government’s announcement that it will launch a mortgage guarantee scheme to give further support to those with smaller deposits, and help both first-time buyers and home movers with a 5% deposit.

All information correct at time of publication.

W14-21