Property Update: Stamp duty returns

EFFORTS to get the stamp-duty holiday on home buying extended past next month's deadline have been resisted so firmly by the Government that campaigners have changed their tack. Stamp duty was designed as a tax on luxury property and it should return to that status by having its threshold doubled to pounds 60,000, says the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. This would remove the burden from inexpensive property and help first-time buyers.

But according to Winkworth, the London-based agents, the reintroduction of stamp duty will have little effect on the property market. 'It will do no more than result in a quiet phase during the last weeks in August,' says a survey of Winkworth managers.