There were a few updates made to stamp duty by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, in the March 2016 Budget yesterday.
Firstly there were changes to the ‘overlap’ period whereby people will now have 36 months to sell an old property rather than the 18 months that was originally cited in the consultation documents. During this period, if a property owner sells their old residential property after buying their new one, they will be entitled to a refund of the additional stamp duty paid.
There were also changes made to the stamp duty rates for commercial property so that the way of calculating them falls into line with the way that residential property stamp duty is now calculated. Instead of one rate of stamp duty applying to the whole purchase price, depending on that price (as residential stamp duty used to do), commercial stamp duty will now operate on a ‘slice’ basis with different rates for each slice of value as follows:
Up to £150,000 – 0%
£150,001 to £250,000 – 2%
above £250,000 – 5%
The government will also introduce a new 2% rate for leasehold rent transactions where the net present value is above £5 million. These transactions are already taxed on a slice basis. All leasehold rent transactions up to £5 million will remain unaffected.