Stamp duty changes introduced in December 2014 by Chancellor George Osborne to make the system fairer helped buyers save an average of £4,530 last year.
According to the latest Lloyds Bank Homemover Review, the largest savings last year were made by homemovers in East Anglia, where someone buying at the average price of £255,028 paid £2,751 in stamp duty fees compared to £7,650 before the change – a difference of £4,899.
Buyers in three other regions also made substantial savings of over £2,500; London – saving £4,850, the South West – saving £4,654 and the South East – saving £2,767.
The switch from a “slab” structure to a progressive tax was announced in the 2014 Autumn Statement. You now pay 0% up to £125,000; 2% to £250,000; 5% to £925,000; 10% to £1.5million and 12% above that.
A recent study by Halifax found that since the reforms there has been some evidence of dampening at the top end of the market, with a 20% decline in sales of homes valued above £1.5 million.
Despite the change, the number of people moving home saw little movement from the previous year.
Although stamp duty changes provided a savings boost for many homemovers and rising house prices helped increase equity levels for property owners, the number of people moving house in 2015 stood at 365,0001 – slightly behind the 366,400 who moved in 2014.
Whilst the 2015 levels are 16% higher than the 2009 market low of 315,800, they are just half of the 2006 peak level of 712,000.
Andrew Mason, Lloyds Bank mortgages director, said: “The 2015 stamp duty changes, low mortgage rates and rising real pay growth, provided more favourable conditions for homemovers in 2015, although that hasn’t translated to any increase in numbers.
”2015 brought good news to homemovers. We might have expected the change to the stamp duty structure to have resulted in a greater numbers. The ongoing increase in house prices throughout the year will have been especially welcomed by those who bought at the peak of house prices, who have been looking to rebuild their equity in order to make their next move.”
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