“It’s been a nightmare,” said Sven Struckl, a 25-year-old from Poole in Dorset, who is about to buy his first home with partner Amy McMillan.
The couple are among thousands of people facing a mad scramble to get their purchases over the line before stamp duty changes kick in next week.
Currently, first-time buyers do not pay any stamp duty on homes costing up to £425,000, while the threshold for other buyers is £250,000.
However, from 1 April the threshold for first-time buyers will drop to £300,000 while for everyone else, it will be halved to £125,000.
Sven and Amy’s three-bed home is £330,000 meaning they faced an extra bill of around £1,500 if they missed the deadline.
“We put an offer in in January and the sellers wanted a quick move because they’re moving into a chain-free property,” Sven told The i Paper.
“Then it was getting closer and closer to the stamp duty deadline.”
Fortunately, they exchanged contracts this week and are due to complete their purchase on 31 March, just in time.
First-time buyers in England who currently benefit from an exemption on properties up to £425,000, and a reduced rate on purchases up to £625,000 (Photo: Sviatlana Zyhmantovich/Getty Images)But Sven said the pressure has been extreme, especially as the couple are also expecting their first child in June.
Sven added: “We’ve already had to scrape money together for the deposit and legal fees – to need £1,500 on top would have been very difficult for us.
“But if we hadn’t made the stamp duty deadline the sellers would have pulled out.
“We were staring in the face of homelessness, we had already given our notice on our rental property. We had nowhere to go.”
There are around 74,000 movers in England expected to miss the April deadline, according to Rightmove, with a quarter of them first-time buyers.
A collective £142m is on the line due to the Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ decision to revert the stamp duty thresholds at her October Budget.
RightMove says the average homeowner in England will pay an extra £2,500 in stamp duty on average once the changes come into effect.
There had been calls for the deadline to be extended in the Spring Statement but Reeves made no mention of it on Wednesday.
“It just ruins the whole buying experience,” Sven added.
“Buying your first home is stressful enough, it should be a good experience, something which you’ve worked hard for.
“For the government to impose these deadlines made it difficult.
“The feeling of relief when we exchanged was huge – but there’s going to be thousands of people out there who are going to be scuppered and chains break down because of it.
“With Amy being pregnant I’m trying to shield some of the stress from her, but obviously she needs to be involved, it’s been a bit of a challenge.”
Spike in house moves
Jess Baudry, a broker at True Mortgages, said she has dealt with triple the number of house moves she would normally be handling at this time of year.
“There’s been a lot of people on the phone in tears and worrying about whether this is going to go through,” she said.
“For me, I see it all the time and I know it’s going to be OK.
“But it’s a massive stress on the clients, especially when they haven’t gone through the process before.”
Broker Jess Baudry said her caseload has tripled compared to the same period last year because of the deadline (Photo: Supplied)Ms Baudry said conveyancers – solicitors who play a key role in housebuying – have been under particular strain.
“The conveyancer I use – it’s normally 60 a month and he’s juggling 130 right now,” she said.
“For a solicitor that is super hard, they bear the brunt of it.
“I’m looking forward to a few quiet days in April.”
Although some completions will go through in the next few days, Ms Baudry said most mortgage lenders have insisted that funds have been released by no later than 26 March due to the scale of demand.
square PROPERTY Our house purchase is delayed due to stamp duty deadline - it's costing us thousands
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“There’s a lot of requests and if they’ve got millions and millions dropping they need time,” she said.
“Most lenders wanted it lined up last week because half the country is trying to get this lined up by Monday.
“There’s only so many funds they can release so it is stressful.
“I do feel for a lot of people – the ones who’ve been looking for a while and they are going to get burned.”
Rightmove’s property market expert Colleen Babcock said: “We expect a rush to complete close to March 31 as first-time buyers and home-movers try to avoid paying extra in tax.
“Our numbers show how there is a relatively small, but disproportionately impacted group of first-time buyers who will be caught out by the changing thresholds, highlighting some disparities in the way the current system works.”
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