Changes in stamp duty help foreign investors

Sterling has fallen heavily against the dollar and the euro since the beginning of 2016

Savills estimates that 70,000 households a year will be priced out of Britain's property market (Getty)

British housebuyers will be hit the hardest by new stamp duty changes while wealthy overseas investors will have a cheaper deal because the pound is weak, a leading estate agent has warned.

Strong currency headwinds have tipped the UK housing market in favour of rich international buyers, according to Chestertons. The London-headquartered firm calculated that homes are comparatively around 28 per cent cheaper for eurozone buyers than they were three years ago. And those buying in currencies pegged to the US dollar, which include Middle Eastern and Hong Kong investors, will find UK properties around 18 per cent more affordable.

Sterling has fallen heavily against the dollar and the euro since the beginning of 2016, and is being kept at recent lows against both by ongoing uncertainty over the EU referendum in June.

Chestertons said this has offset the 2014 stamp duty reforms as well as the introduction of an effective 3 per cent surcharge on second and buy-to-let homes, introduced on 1 April.

Guy Gittins, executive director at Chestertons, said: “The Chancellor George Osborne boasted that his recent changes to stamp duty would level the playing field, allowing first-time UK home-buyers to beat wealthy foreign investors to the punch.

“We can now see that his ham-fisted reforms, coupled with weakened sterling, have actually served to tip the balance the other way.”