Surge in mortgage applications seen by major bank ahead of stamp duty deadline

Santander UK recorded a 130% summation successful owe applications successful the 4th fourth of 2024 compared with the aforesaid play a twelvemonth earlier, arsenic immoderate home-buyers sought to perchance prevention themselves thousands of pounds successful stamp work costs.

From April, stamp work discounts volition go little generous, with the “nil rate” set for first-time buyers reducing from £425,000 to £300,000 and different home-buyers seeing a simplification from £250,000 to £125,000.

Santander estimates the mean spot acquisition takes 4 months from a owe connection to completion, meaning that immoderate radical buying towards the extremity of past twelvemonth volition person maximised their chances of benefiting from little stamp work costs, up of the April 1 deadline.

Every penny counts

Graham Sellar, Santander

Graham Sellar, caput of intermediary transmission – mortgages, astatine Santander, said: “We each cognize that buying a location – whether it’s our archetypal oregon our everlastingly location – comes with important costs. Every penny counts erstwhile considering things similar legals and removals costs, truthful it’s large to spot truthful galore radical marque the astir of the vacation and unafraid their caller location up of April 1.”

In the South East of England, wherever the mean location terms is £385,600, first-time buyers could perchance prevention up to £4,280 successful stamp work by purchasing earlier April 1, based connected emblematic spot values, Santander said.

In London, an mean first-time purchaser could extremity up paying implicit £11,000 much from April, it calculated. Based connected an mean location terms of £535,700, Santander calculated that a first-time purchaser faces paying £5,535 currently, compared with £16,785 from April.

Recent probe for the slope by Opinium among 2,000 first-time buyers indicated they are progressively compromising connected determination to fulfil their imagination of owning a home.

Two-thirds (67%) of those who bought their archetypal location successful the past 2 years had ne'er seen their caller neighbourhood earlier buying, compared with conscionable implicit fractional (51%) of those who bought much than 5 years ago.