First Time Buyers to Escape Stamp Duty in Budget 2010?

The Chancellor, Alistair Daring, was last night preparing to announce that the starting threshold for stamp duty would be doubled to £250,000 Westminster sources said, as a pre election sweetener.

Stamp duty currently starts at 1% starting at properties above £125,000, and rises to 4% for the most expensive homes.

This policy was first proposed by the Conservatives in 2007 and the treasury has refused to confirm the move, which would cost around £1billion. As this is a Labour move it will surely lead to accusations that ministears are stealing Conservative poilicies and using them as a bribe at a time when the public are in a state of financial crisis.

The Conservatives have estimated that their stamp duty pledge would cost £250 million a year, money they said that they would raise from levying an annual charge on “non-domiciled” wealthy people.

An increase in stamp duty would mean a much needed saving of 1% for buyers who have previously been struggling to get a foot on the property ladder, so if you have a property development that you are looking to sell, now could be the right time to put the property back on the market.

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Fraser Stirling, Property Mentor Delegate

No matter what the media wants you to believe, property is still the only investment route where you can benefit from an asset that will NEVER go into zero value. Even when I was university I admired properties ability to withstand the economic elements and stay strong, even when other investment forms faltered or failed. X years on, I am now the proud owner of multiple property investments - one of which earns a passive income of £4,680 and my property portfolio is still expanding. Read more