Whichever way you look at it, this current period feels like one of stasis, as…
Last month, pre-Budget, I pondered on what impact the October 30th event would have on the conveyancing sector and the wider property market in general. Clearly, the decision to up NI contributions for employers is a wider measure that will impact a huge number of businesses.
However, I also talked about the potential to shift stamp duty which has often been a regular go-to for Governments of the recent past, and lo and behold, we heard that the stamp duty surcharge on the purchase of additional homes would go up from 3% to 5%.
The decision to do this with immediate effect, and not to raise CGT on the sale of additional properties to income tax levels was, it has to be said, a surprise, and coupled with the decision to return thresholds to their previous level in April next year, was the end of the stamp duty changes.
What however does this mean for the next few months as that latter shift happens? Will we see conveyancers under increased pressure to complete first-time buyer purchases by the end of March, in order to make a saving? I suspect it will.
From what I’m hearing the immediate change to the additional home surcharge didn’t have a massive impact on workloads, but this next stage could well mean a very busy few months for conveyancing firms.
We, of course, have been here before, and firms have had to cut their cloth accordingly. I suspect that once we are in April next year things will stabilise for member firms until the Government decides it might wish to tinker with stamp duty again.
The timing on this will probably depend on how property market transaction levels hold up, and whether as this Parliament progresses, the Government feels the need to inject some rocket fuel into the market, or whether it needs to raise more money.
The irony of course is that a large number of economists and trade bodies believe that you would raise more money from the property market for the Treasury coffers by not having stamp duty at all. That, however, seems unpalatable in the extreme for most Governments.
Instead, what we can decipher from the Budget is that the Government has no hesitation in moving stamp duty for its own ends. This time it decided to raise the burden on (mostly) landlords who want to buy; next time it might decide to support first-timers again, or perhaps it will respond to the call to cut stamp duty for downsizers?
The days of stamp duty as a political football of sorts are clearly not over, and because of that, conveyancing firms will always need to be ready for the peaks and troughs that such interventions are always likely to deliver.
2024/2025 events
Before I go, I just wanted to highlight two Conveyancing Association events which will be here before we know it.
First up, is our Legal and All Members’ Meeting taking place on Thursday 5th December at the offices of our Affiliate member, Howden, in the City of London.
As one of our must-attend quarterly meetings, and the last one of course of 2024, we would love to see as many CA members in attendance as possible. As usual, we’ll have a packed agenda covering relevant topics and a number of panel discussions.
Next month, the agenda will specifically deliver a comprehensive policy and campaign update to take us out of 2024, and into 2025; a round table discussion of our latest version of the CA’s Cyber and Technical Protocols; a focus on the Banking Protocol in relation to delayed suspicious payments; a Conveyancer Survey workshop; and a discussion around the myths and truths of liability insurance.
We of course will also provide ample time for networking amongst members during the day, and a chance to all have a post-meeting/pre-Christmas drink, kindly hosted by Howden at Boki.
Also, we are just a couple of months away from the jewel in our event crown, the CA Annual Conference and Dinner, once again being held in the Hilton Deansgate, Manchester on the 30th January.
Full details for the day and night are available here, but needless to say if you’ve not yet registered to attend, please do, as we wouldn’t want you to miss what will be a jam-packed, highly-informative day of sessions all looking at where the conveyancing sector currently is and what we can expect in the future.
I will be highlighting the Conference and Dinner in more depth over the next couple of months, but we will be looking specifically at how the economy impacts our sector and the technology that may allow us to face the future with renewed confidence.
On that note, I do hope to see you all in London on the 5th December for our final event of 2024.
Nicky Heathcote is Non-Executive Chair at the Conveyancing Association (CA)