The chancellor has pledged to publish a consultation in January on a 1% SDLT surcharge for non-residents buying residential property in England and Northern Ireland.
A surcharge would put further pressure on housing supply, as foreign demand enables many developers to build more homes. The government continues to push the false belief that foreigners are buying up homes in the capital in droves and leaving them empty, despite there being almost no evidence of this.
The already popular sub £600,000 price bracket will become even more overburdened by an increase of foreign buyers looking for lower-priced properties to reduce their exposure to higher SDLT.
Rather than addressing the housing market’s real problem of a fundamental lack of supply, this new tax would only create a smoke and mirrors effect to detract from the real housing crisis.
Ashley Osborne, head of residential, Colliers International
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