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Autumn Statement 2022: Stamp duty cuts to remain until 2025
Stamp duty cuts brought in by former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng are to be kept until 2025, new chancellor Jeremy Hunt has confirmed.
Outlining concerns over a slowing housing market in the coming years, Mr Hunt said that changes to stamp duty, which will raise thresholds to twice the previous rate, will help the property market during a difficult period.
However, he confirmed that the cuts will then be phased out from March 2025.
In delivering his Autumn Statement to parliament, Mr Hunt said: “The OBR [Office for Budget Responsibility] expects housing activity to slow over the next two years.
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“So the stamp duty cuts announced in the Mini Budget will remain in place, but only until the 31st of March 2025. After that I will sunset the measure, creating an incentive to support the housing market and the jobs associated with it.”
The OBR has forecast that house prices will fall by 9.0% between the last quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2024, due to higher mortgage rates and a wider economic downturn.
The rise in the stamp duty threshold was one of the few policies from September’s Mini Budget that was kept when Mr Hunt was appointed chancellor by Liz Truss when she was prime minister.
Mr Kwarteng had permanently doubled the threshold from £125,000 to £250,000, with first-time buyers paying no stamp duty on the first £425,000 of a new home, up from £300,000.
In October, Mr Hunt confirmed that he would keep the stamp duty cuts permanently, despite reversing almost all other tax cuts by his predecessor.
The latest announcement means that the threshold rise will only last for what the government and the OBR expect to be a slowdown in the UK economy.
