A taxing question: Is Stamp Duty Land Tax suffocating the English housing market? Report for Family Building Society November 2017 Kath Scanlon, Christine Whitehead and Fanny Blanc © LSE London, 2017 You may re-use this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium under a Creative Commons licence. This document/publication is also available on our website at lse.ac.uk/geography-and- environment/research/lse-london/LSE-London or lselondonhousing.org Any enquiries regarding this document/publication should be sent to us at: LSE London London School of Economics and Political Science POR 3.01 London WC2A 2AE
[email protected] For all our latest news and updates follow us on Social icon Circle Only use blue and/or white. For more details check out our Brand Guidelines. @LSE_London LSELondonGeographies LSE London Foreword The UK’s housing market is a shambles. Young people still really want to get on the housing ladder and most can’t. Rents charged by landlords from their parents’ generation, the “buy to let” generation, add to their burdens. Of course, fundamentally this is a supply side issue. The country’s widening demand/supply imbalance, which has gone on for a generation, is why prices are so high. Sorting out this imbalance will inevitably take years, decades. Part of the supply side could be answered if existing housing were better distributed. Perhaps the greatest impediment to a more dynamic, liquid housing market is the glue known as Stamp Duty Land Tax. Stamp duty is suffocating the market. In addition to the burden of saving a deposit, first time buyers now have to find many thousands of pounds in stamp duty, a much greater amount, proportional to after-tax income, than past generations faced.