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After a long campaign for justice against a cruel tax regime that unfairly penalises first time buyers by property expert Kirsty Allsopp, relief is finally at hand for not only first time buyers but everyone buying and selling property. Ms Allsopp, best known for her television appearances on Channel 4's Location Location Location has long argued that the 1% stamp duty payable on the average UK house has been an unfair impediment to first time buyers. She passionately argued that this blatant exploitation of first time buyers by the government effectively priced them out of the property market and the key to get the housing market moving again was to scrap the tax. Arguing for first time buyers she says "People aren't able to continue with their lives, their family lives, what really matters to them, because they aren't able to buy and sell houses." On the treasury she said "They are killing the goose. They took and took and took - well, you can't go on taking that money out of the market for ever. It's no coincidence people were being offered 125 per cent mortgages - people were borrowing money to pay the stamp duty."
Interviewed on the steps on 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minsiter Gordon Brown made the following statement: "We listened to what people were telling us and we felt their pain. We are on the side of the people and we moved to help them. People said to us, "we can't afford the stamp duty" and we responded. Of course it is right that the government spending plans remain intact and so we could not scrap the tax directly. Instead we have introduced the latest in a list of innovative tax reforms that started with my introduction of Tax Credits, a system that has helped single mothers all over the country. This innovative new measure I introduced has been in place for a month or two and I waited until now to announce it as I monitored its effect. It has been a resounding success and I can now confirm that rather than just scrap the 1% stamp duty for house purchases up to up to £250,000, the 3% and 4% for purchases up to 250,000 and £500,000 respectively have also been scrapped. With this successful initiative to remove the block in the process of buying and selling houses in the UK I now expect the housing market to return to normal, supported as always by the strong fundamentals of high employment, low inflation and low interest rates."
Asked for details of the scheme Mr Brown referred journalists to the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Martin Ellis (formerly chief economist of the Halifax Bank of Scotland), who announced that the 2 percent reduction in the cost of house purchases today following on from last months 2.5 percent reduction effectively meant that the government has gone beyond its target and this would be expected to result in further house price growth over the remainder of the year as things got back to normal.
Interviewed on the steps on 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minsiter Gordon Brown made the following statement: "We listened to what people were telling us and we felt their pain. We are on the side of the people and we moved to help them. People said to us, "we can't afford the stamp duty" and we responded. Of course it is right that the government spending plans remain intact and so we could not scrap the tax directly. Instead we have introduced the latest in a list of innovative tax reforms that started with my introduction of Tax Credits, a system that has helped single mothers all over the country. This innovative new measure I introduced has been in place for a month or two and I waited until now to announce it as I monitored its effect. It has been a resounding success and I can now confirm that rather than just scrap the 1% stamp duty for house purchases up to up to £250,000, the 3% and 4% for purchases up to 250,000 and £500,000 respectively have also been scrapped. With this successful initiative to remove the block in the process of buying and selling houses in the UK I now expect the housing market to return to normal, supported as always by the strong fundamentals of high employment, low inflation and low interest rates."
Asked for details of the scheme Mr Brown referred journalists to the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Martin Ellis (formerly chief economist of the Halifax Bank of Scotland), who announced that the 2 percent reduction in the cost of house purchases today following on from last months 2.5 percent reduction effectively meant that the government has gone beyond its target and this would be expected to result in further house price growth over the remainder of the year as things got back to normal.
