By India Block.
Instead of relief from stamp duty, the government today has promised to abolish stamp duty relief in their 2024 Spring Budget announcement.
At Black Brick, we always monitor Budget announcements closely for their impact on our clients — and the Spring Budget 2024 contained one decision that our founder Camilla Dell believes deserves serious scrutiny: the abolition of Multiple Dwellings Relief (MDR).
MDR was originally introduced to support investors purchasing more than one property in a single transaction, offering reduced rates of Stamp Duty Land Tax as an incentive. For many of our buy-to-let clients who regularly acquire portfolios of six or more properties in one transaction, this relief has been a meaningful and legitimate financial benefit. Its removal, in Camilla’s view, is simply shortsighted.
The reasoning is straightforward. Investors purchasing multiple properties at scale are doing something genuinely valuable for the housing market — they are adding much-needed supply to the private rental sector. Removing this incentive is yet another deterrent to investment in an already pressured market, and the consequences will ultimately be felt not by wealthy landlords but by ordinary tenants. Fewer landlords entering or remaining in the market means reduced rental supply, and reduced supply means higher rents. At a time when rental affordability is already at crisis point across much of London and the wider UK, this is a deeply unhelpful outcome.
The Budget offered little else to encourage optimism in the property sector. First-time buyers were left without the stamp duty relief many had hoped for, the Lifetime ISA cap remained unchanged, and the widely trailed 99 per cent mortgage scheme failed to materialise. While the reduction in the higher rate of capital gains tax on residential property from 28 to 24 per cent was a modest positive step, the overall picture for property investors and aspiring homeowners alike was one of missed opportunity.
At Black Brick, we continue to help our clients navigate an increasingly complex tax and regulatory environment, ensuring that every investment decision is made with the clearest possible understanding of the landscape ahead.
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