Last October, Chancellor Philip Hammond announced plans to correct an anomaly from his previous Budget by cutting Stamp Duty for first-time buyers of shared ownership properties worth up to £500,000. It was also announced by the Chancellor that the relief will be applied retrospectively from his previous Budget (November 2017) to shared ownership properties bought in England and Northern Ireland. Shared ownership schemes are a cross between buying and renting; aimed mainly at first-time buyers. Shared ownership schemes are aimed at people who don’t earn enough to buy a home outright, allowing a buyer to purchase between a quarter and three-quarters of a property. In the 2017 budget, Chancellor Philip Hammond raised the 0% Stamp Duty threshold to £300,000 from £125,000 in order to help first-time buyers. To qualify for the Stamp Duty exemption given in the 2017 budget to first-time buyers of homes priced up to £300,000, buyers of a shared ownership property had to elect to be taxed on the full market value of the home (up to £500,000) rather than just on the share they were buying. If the full market value of the shared-ownership property was more than £500,000, the buyer would not have been eligible for any Stamp Duty relief at all. Alternatively, buyers could elect to use their first-time buyer exemption on the first share of the property they bought but would have had to pay full rate Stamp Duty on all further shares bought, regardless if the sum of all payments was less than £300,000. The update to the 2018 budget for first-time buyers purchasing shared ownership homes is a welcomed move and is even better news that this change has been backdated to November 2017. For further information and advice, please contact our teams in Coventry, Great Barr Birmingham, Elstree, Sussex and Walsall.

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