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The stamp duty holiday in England and Northern Ireland ends on 30 June – but changes to the amount buyers have to pay will then be staggered. The tax has been suspended on the first £500,000 of all property sales in England and Northern Ireland since July 2020. What is the stamp duty holiday? The […]

Share High Street lenders are now starting to offer mortgages to borrowers offering a deposit of just 5% under a new government guarantee scheme. The policy, announced in the Budget, is designed to help more first-time buyers secure a home. But the launch comes as average house prices in the UK continue to rise to […]

The masterplan to help people upgrade the UK’s homes has been “botched” and must be urgently overhauled, MPs say. The environmental audit select committee says the Green Homes Grant (GHG), which offers people up to £10,000 for insulation, is so inept that it is actually damaging the building sector. It adds that 19 million UK […]

House purchase prices will fall back to a similar level seen last year within three months, according to forecasts by Reallymoving. The firm noted that prices paid dropped 2.4 per cent from January to February – the fifth consecutive month of falls and expects this to continue until May. By then it believes prices will […]

House builders that carry out repairs on newly built homes need to be more open about what work has been required, according to the chairman of Parliament’s Housing Committee. Some home owners say they were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) as a condition of repairs being done. The practice was “appalling”, Clive Betts MP […]

New guidance has been released aimed at reducing the number of wall safety surveys being requested by banks and building societies on blocks of flats… Thousands of flat owners have been unable to sell or remortgage because they cannot get the checks done. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said it would help lenders […]

The extension of the stamp duty holiday will provide relief for people buying and selling homes, according to property group Knight Frank. “The extension is fair because completion dates for buyers and sellers have been jeopardised through no fault of their own,” says Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank. The conveyancing […]

A new mortgage guarantee scheme to help people with small deposits get on the property ladder is set to be announced at next week’s Budget. The government will offer incentives to lenders, bringing back 95% mortgages which have “virtually disappeared” during the pandemic, the Treasury said. Chancellor Rishi Sunak says he will use the Budget […]

UK house prices climbed 8.5% in 2020, the highest annual growth rate since October 2014, according to official figures. The average UK house price reached a record high of £252,000 in December 2020, the Office for National Statistics said. The North West had the highest growth of 11.2%, while London rose just 3.5%. The stamp […]

Homebuyers racing to beat the Help to Buy equity loan deadline of 31 March now have a further two months to complete their purchase. Homes England has announced it will extend the deadline until 31 May for completion of the build and purchase to give buyers and builders more time to take advantage of the […]