A terrace of residential houses on Lowndes Square, Belgravia, London, UK on Thursday, January 7 2021. Picture: BLOOMBERG/HOLLIE ADAMSA government perk that has bolstered demand for homes has only two months left to run, and almost one-in-six transactions under way are likely to miss out. The end of the £15,000 tax break threatens to puncture a boom in the market that stoked prices to the fastest gains in six years.
It is the latest in a series of cliff edges that chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak is facing as measures to boost demand during the first wave of the pandemic expire. Other forms of support have already been extended, and while Sunak has not said he will postpone the deadline, a bloc of Conservative lawmakers is pressuring him to do just that.
“Because of the delays, because of Covid, because the conveyancing process is taking so much longer than it normally would, I don’t think it’s fair to keep this deadline,” she said.