25 signatures reached
To: Rishi Sunak - Chancellor of the Exchequer
Extend Stamp Duty Holiday
Extend the Stamp Duty holiday for a further six months until September 2021 to avoid the inevitable fallout from the end of the furlough scheme and indeed the end of the Help to Buy Equity Loan for anyone who is not a First Time Buyer, both set to occur in March 2021.
Why is this important?
The Country, and indeed the world, is currently facing a catastrophic pandemic that is causing not only death on a massive scale but also higher levels of unemployment and job loss that have not been seen since the recession in 2008. The current Stamp Duty holiday, whilst currently creating a boom in the housing market, is set to cause a bottleneck in March 2021 with the end of the furlough scheme and the end of the Help to Buy Equity Loan for anyone who is not a First Time Buyer. Not only will this bottleneck cause agents and lawyers to exceed their capacity more than they already have (leading to potential indemnity insurance claims when some individuals do not complete before the end of the Stamp Duty holiday) but it will worsen an expected dip in the market in the second quarter of 2021. It is vital that the Stamp Duty holiday be extended to allow the market to recover naturally whilst a vaccine is introduced and people return to work (for their old employers or new).
