The main stamp duty holiday duly ended on June 30th. That was the last day for a sale to complete and qualify for a temporary raised nil rate band of £500,000 before stamp duty land tax (SDLT) kicked in. Effectively anyone buying a property £500,000 or over saved £15,000 in stamp duty. This meant a last minute rush for us to get sales completed in time. We got 8 through on June 29th and a further 3 even riskier ones on the very last day. As that day dawned the contracts hadn’t even exchanged and in one case it had been impossible to get removers at the last stage. Somehow all 3 exchanged and completed on June 30th.
For another 3 months the nil rate band now drops back to £250,000 which effectively means most buyers completing a sale before September 30th will save £2,500, which isn’t massive but nevertheless is still an incentive. So the market hasn’t cooled down as some pundits thought it might. We instantly arranged 3 new sales over the 2 days after the main stamp duty holiday ended and we think there’s still plenty of momentum to keep the market moving on from here.