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Older downsizers ‘should not have to pay Stamp Duty’, call
Older people who are downsizing should not have to pay Stamp Duty Land Tax, it has been argued.
Nigel Wilson, chief executive of Legal & General, said ‘last-time buyers’ should be incentivised to move, in order to free up badly needed housing stock.
Legal & General, together with the Centre for Economics and Business Research, has issued new research into the last-time buyer market.
In doing so, it has identified 5.3m under-occupied homes in the UK, with 3.3m of last-time buyers wanting to downsize.
But while almost a third of older home owners have considered downsizing in the last five years, only 7% actually did so.
The research says that last-time buyers are sitting on the equivalent of 2.6m family homes, representing ten years of housing supply.
The report identifies that older people face critical barriers in moving, including a lack of suitable accommodation for their next home, the cost of available options, and tax.
It calls for more housing to be made available to serve the needs of older people, saying that most retirement housing is concentrated among affordable housing providers and premium private sector firms, with very little for the mid-market.
http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/older-downsizers-should-not-have-to-pay-stamp-duty-call/
