Winchester
| NEWS FROM THE PEWS | | | MUSIC | | | THEATRE |  | | | | ADVERTISING FEATURES
Click here to view a selection of advertising features that have appeared in your Gazette
| EVENTS
You can now add your own events to our events calendar
|
|
|
|
Winchester hard-hit by stamp duty
HOMEBUYERS in Winchester have
suffered the biggest rise in stamp duty
in Hampshire, due to soaring house
prices.
People in the county are paying up
to £12,400 more in stamp duty than a
decade ago, new figures have revealed.
Every part of the county recorded an
increase in duty over the past 10
years, according to a Conservative
Party analysis of Government figures,
but buyers in Winchester have taken
the greatest hit.
A family buying an average-priced
detached home in the city would have
paid just £1,470 in stamp duty in 1997.
By last year that figure had jumped to
£13,922-an increase of £12,453.
Southampton buyers experienced
the lowest increase in the county, with
duty on the average detached house
rising by £6,802, from £853 to £7,655,
over the same period.
The hikes are because previous
years of soaring house prices have
pushed more family homes into the
three per cent stamp duty bracket.
Since 2000, the three per cent
threshold has been set at £250,000.
Homebuyers purchasing properties
worth more than £500,000 have paid
four per cent stamp duty.
The Tories say that more and more
homes have been "sucked" into "punitive"
rates of stamp duty because of
Gordon Brown's refusal to increase the
tax thresholds in line with house
prices.
There are fears that the higher rates
are discouraging some families from
moving, at a time when the housing
market is already struggling because
of the credit crunch.
Shadow housing minister Grant
Shapps said: "Instead of helping people
on to the housing ladder the Government
has hijacked the home
-buying process by raising stamp duty.
"Buying your own home used to be
an obtainable dream for many people
- now it is just the minority who manage
to climb on to the property ladder."
The figures revealed big average
stamp duty increases across the south
over the past decade. Stamp duty on
an average detached home jumped by
£10,459 in the New Forest, £10,110 in
Test Valley, £9,059 in Eastleigh, £9,002
in Fareham and £8,025 in Gosport. The
rise on the Isle ofWight was £7,479.
A Treasury spokeswoman responded:
"Half of all first-time homebuyers and
about two-fifths of all homebuyers will
pay no stamp duty this year.
"What's more, as a result of threshold
increases made by the Government,
four out of five homebuyers pay
stamp duty at one per cent or pay
none at all.
"In the 2005 Budget the then Chancellor
doubled the zero-rate threshold
to £120,000, taking 430,000 transactions
out of stamp duty entirely at that
time.
"In 2006, the Chancellor increased
the threshold further to £125,000,
exempting additional homebuyers
from stamp duty."
11:12am Thursday 24th July 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
