Owning your own home

is it me or is stamp duty specifically designed to fuck first time buyers in London over?

Nope. They fuck all the buyers, for every house. Then you die, and they take some more. Multiple bites at the cherry.

What about those figures suggest first time buyers are affected most?!

Fucking hell, if you wanted to buy an average size family home in our area you'd have to pay £180k stamp duty. I don't k ow what is more fucked
..the £1.5m price tag or the stamp duty.

Not that much, more like ~£90k because it's calculated in bands, not just on the top rate https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/calculate-stamp-duty-land-tax/#/detail

Still, some poor bastard is going to have to pay £20k SD for our tiny victorian terraced cottage.

That looks like a screenshot from a calculator, based on a property worth <£250k?

Just in case you are having a brainfart, more expensive properties do pay progressively proportionately more stamp duty (see rate), but in this instance obviously there's nothing to pay (see duty).

It's a slight penalty on first time buyers in London (as opposed to first time buyers outside of London & the SE) on the basis that the "duty-free" allowance of £125,000 is sufficient to cover all/most of a fairly typical 2-bed place in many parts of the country. So in effect there's realistically £0 Stamp Duty for First Time Buyers in, for example, Rotherham.

Stamp Duty thresholds should arguably have a weighting depending on the typical property values in whatever part of the country you're purchasing in but that's another debate.

It's better then is was, we bought in 2012 before the new rules, was 3% over £250,000 so had to pay £9,000 against our £300,000 property, think it would be nearly half that now! Not that I'm bitter!

Then you die, and they take some more.

Admittedly, they take more from something that may well have been earning more than you have yourself, by just sitting there

Title Deeds.

Do your solicitors keep them or do you?

And are there any other original copies of documents you should keep rather than them?

As background I have essentially zero confidence in their ability to do anything other than take payment.

I have mine. The solicitors don't hold anything.

I met friends of friends the other day who recently purchased a £1.5M terraced house in Tredegar square in bow. whilst they are clearly potted the bloke was almost suicidal about the amount of stamp duty he had to pay. limited sympathy from me tbh.

@princeperch and after all that they then had to live in Bow.

tbf it is the best bit of bow and a nice street. but they are still paying 1.5M to live amongst drug dealers and scumbags. no ta.

Used to be a big brothel there.

What about those figures suggest first time buyers are affected most?!

It's from a 'first time buyer' calculator thing on the gov website; looks like there's no stamp duty to pay for first time buyers unless the property is worth up to 250k - i.e. pretty much every property in London

Fwiw I saw some flats online in Woolwich that were sub£250k.

Might be worth a look.

Thanks bro. I grew up round that area, honestly i'd rather bite any amount of financial hardship than move back.

It's the same for all buyers with one home though? First time buyer thing is a bit of a red herring.

You can keep them if you like but now everything is electronic there's no need other than for fun.

Aah i didn't realise that. I was only looking at the 'first time buyer' table because that's what I am, so I naturally assumed every other bellend had it better than me. Because that's the rule.

tbf it is the best bit of bow and a nice street.

Yea it's scuzzy, but the real problem is there's just nothing to do down that way - anything interesting is a bit of a hike. Restaurants? Nope. Shopping? Nope. Bike Shop? Nope. Coffee? Nope.

But I can see some appeal in Tredegar square if you want a quiet life and don't mind driving / cycling everywhere just to get a newspaper.

Oh... and Tower Hamlets wankers

Mortgage offer arrived yesterday after 7 weeks of delay. It's for 30 years instead of the 25 we requested. do we suck it up (maybe save the difference?) for the 3 years fixed rate period then re-mortgage? Or do we make them get it right and risk more delays? We're trying to exchange next week and contracts were posted yesterday... I reckon just live with it.

Depends on the terms regarding overpayment on whatever mortgage product you've ended up with IMO.

In my case it made sense to "overpay" a 30 year term rather than take a shorter mortgage but some lenders have very different boundaries on how much you can overpay.

You can often change the term for a nominal fee. Think mine costs about £80

So could go ahead then change it in a few months if it was the case

I've just remortaged my place and have received an email from the solictors saying:

I am writing to you as we have received a requisition from the Land Registry that your property is registered as 18 XXXXXX Road whereas the mortgage offer is in the address of 18B XXXXX Road.

Are you able to confirm which address is correct? Please note if you do wish for us to amend the address, we would just require your consent to do us which we are able to accept via return of this e-mail.

The property is two flats in a house. Mine is the upstairs flat, hence the B. I own a share of the freehold of the building (together with downstairs) and the flat has a lease from that.

Looking at the land registry website I can see that there are records for 18 XXXXXX Road and 18A XXXXXX Road. I assume the A is the downstairs flat.

For other flats on the road there appears to be entries for the whole property and the flats, e.g. 14,14A and 14B

Would there be any issues that anyone is aware of in changing from 18 to 18B. Should an element of this be left as 18 to reflect the freehold?

I will ask the solicitors this but they are the free ones that came with the mortgage so no idea how good they are or otherwise.

Cheers