News from the Residential Property Investor, the bi-monthly magazine for RLA members other artilces from the December 2000 / January 2001 issue RPI news archive

Stamp duty waiver - December 2000 / January 2001

Stamp duty is to be abolished in 'deprived areas'.

The news came in Gordon Brown's pre-Budget announcement which also brought the promise of modernisation of stamp duty rules to allow for electronic transfers of land and buildings.

Details, subject to consultation, will be included in next year's Finance Act. But it is already clear there is likely to be difficulty in identifying exactly which properties will be exempted stamp duty.

Most likely indicator to exemption entitlements will be Indices of deprivation 2000, which ranks every electoral ward in England and Wales in order of deprivation ­ judged according to factors such as unemployment, education, health, housing and access to other basic services. The stamp duty exemption is likely to apply to wards falling within the lowest decile.

Sheffield has four such wards, Bristol five, although in most there are pockets of expensive property. A clear example can be found in Lambeth, a ward likely to qualify for stamp duty relief, and where Home Secretary Jack Straw owns a desirable property.
 

other artilces from the December 2000 / January 2001 issue

• Increasing costs
• Call for crisis talks on benefit delays
• Compensation not small beer
• Action taken on allocation and Ads
• CIEH campaigns for HMO licensing move
• Landlord sent for sentencing
• In brief
• Stamp duty waiver
• Repairs countdown