Stamp duty on house purchases has been a fact of life for UK house and land buyers in some shape or form for centuries! However, recently there have been significant changes to the stamp duty regime and how much stamp duty you may need to pay.
So when asking ‘how much extra stamp duty will I pay?’ we assume that you are referring to the extra stamp duty that is applicable on second homes that are purchased on or after 1st April 2016.
Obviously the first question you need to ask is – will the extra stamp duty be applicable to my purchase? The simple answer is – if you are buying a property that will be a second or additional property and if you are not planning to live in this property as a replacement of your main residence then you will more than likely be subject to the extra stamp duty.
Of course there are some situations that may mean you are not subject to the extra stamp duty and at the moment the final details have not been put into place after the recent consultation, but the majority of second property purchases are likely to be included in the extra stamp duty.
So, if you want to work out how much extra stamp duty you will pay, then you can use our stamp duty calculator to check the actual figures. But if you want to do a quick calculation then, as long as the property you are buying costs more than £40,000, you just need to work out 3% of the whole property cost. So for example, if the house you are buying costs £180,000 then you will have to pay £5,400 extra stamp duty and when we say extra, this is on top of the standard rates of stamp duty that are payable anyway.
So check out the calculator (and we have one for standard rate of stamp duty and one for the new higher rate of stamp duty so that you can compare between the two).
For anyone buying a property that costs more than the average house price in the UK, this is a significant extra investment to be recovered over the period of ownership of the property.