Search Acumen comments on the downside of extending the stamp duty holiday until June

Andy Sommerville, Director at Search Acumen, comments on the drawbacks and downside of the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, extending the stamp duty holiday until June.

“Today’s stamp duty extension is not just welcome news for thousands of homebuyers-in-waiting. Extending the stamp duty holiday is also a tonic for thousands of conveyancers who have been under pressure to complete due diligence on an industrial scale against a pressing deadline, and risking burnout at a time when businesses are still under Government instructions to work from home.

“However, the Chancellor’s much-anticipated move simply defers rather than dodges the cliff-edge by putting it off until June. The stamp duty holiday has once again shown the flaws in traditional working practices and flagged the need to future-proof the property market with a data-driven approach to drive transactions through to completion.

“Given the technology at our fingertips, no homebuyer in 2021 should have to wait for weeks at the back of a queue for due diligence to be completed. Neither should any conveyancer have to apologise to their clients for delays caused by a system clearly past its sell-by date. Innovations like our Data Snapshot tool are crucial to shifting the transaction process up a gear by providing instant access to risk data accompanied by insurance, to help buyers avoid being caught in the stamp duty crush in three months’ time.”

Kindly shared by Search Acumen

Main article photo courtesy of Pixabay