Stamp duty holiday warning: Lenders face delays as deadline approaches

More than half of buy-to-let lenders currently active in the market will fail to get deals over the line before the stamp duty deadline runs out at the end of March, new research by Mortgages for Business shows.

The specialist broker is warning BTL landlords that just 47% of the mortgage lenders who are actively lending in this sector at the moment could still make the deadline.

And the broker says even the lenders still capable of doing deals in this sort of time frame may well struggle to hit the deadline if solicitors or local authorities drag their feet.

Jeni Browne, director of Mortgages for Business said: “Typically, a landlord would want about 100 days to complete a purchase. Clearly, landlords don’t have that sort of time on their hands anymore and I’d urge them to do everything they can to push through a new buy-to-let purchase before the stamp duty holiday ends.”

While the stamp duty holiday means property BTL investors do not have to pay stamp duty on transactions under £500,000, they must still pay the 3% BTL surcharge.

Browne said: “Surveyors can’t operate at full capacity given all the preparation for a valuation they have to undertake to be Covid-19 compliant and that’s slowing transactions.

“Even if the lenders and the surveyors come through, you might get unlucky with your local authority – one search we undertook recently, took up to 145 days to complete.”

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3 Comments

  1. kevdav53

    “one search we undertook recently, took up to 145 days to complete.”

    Why wouldn’t they have taken out title insurance as a workaround?

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    1. Rob Hailstone

      I think you you mean search delay insurance, not title insurance. Not all lenders will accept search delay insurance.

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  2. Mythoughts

    Have I misread this article? Firstly, it’s the BTL lenders that are dragging their heels, if it”s not them it’s the Solicitors and if it’s not them, it’s the Local authorities . Oh and of course, Surveyors hampered by Covid restrictions.
    Casting blame  guised as a warning. Is that good PR exercise?. Sure your panel Lenders and Solicitors will love reading that !      

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