Here is a key influencer article from Head Shepherd at Ewe Move, Nick Neill. In this article Nick provides some great tips for estate agents on how to get ahead of the Stamp Duty deadline.
Three Steps You Can Take to Get a Step Ahead of the Stamp Duty Deadline
There’s been a few articles in the national press this weekend about a potential stamp duty holiday deadline extension. It’s currently set for March 31, and many estate agents are anxiously watching out for updates from Westminster. The media chatter is that a six-week extension could be granted by the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak. Some agents believe it’ll be a catastrophe if the deadline isn’t extended due to the number of deals in the pipeline. But other agents think its impact will be minimal.
I tend to think most of the deals going through will complete regardless, and that the amount of people dropping out of a sale due to paying extra stamp duty will be a lot smaller than we think. We already know that there is strong demand from buyers who have limited choice of properties to buy, so there is little incentive to walk away.
At EweMove, we are persistently proactive and we’ve been preparing different plans based on what might happen around Stamp Duty for a while now.
Three simple steps can help any agent protect themselves and their clients from whatever happens.
1) Get busy around ensuring your clients’ admin and paperwork is in order as much as possible. Dig a little deeper to uncover any potential problems before they hold up the conveyancing work. Examples could be making sure there are no neighbour or boundary disputes that could hold things up. I’d also advise against contacting conveyancing solicitors unnecessarily. I know that this may sound counter-intuitive, but if ten agents call a solicitor for non-essential updates each day, they’ll struggle to get through the work we all need them to do most.
2) Pre-negotiate on scenarios that could happen. Talk to your clients about their plan B if there is no extension. Is the buyer prepared to make up the difference and if so how might it be financed? Will the seller take less for their property? Is there a way of meeting in the middle?
3)This third option is one that some agencies won’t have available to them. At EweMove, we work with a dedicated sales progression company who has a hotline to their conveyancers. This ensures we can keep totally on top of things our end and get deals done much more quickly, reducing our risk of losing deals come the end of March!
Whatever happens, one thing is for sure, the successful agents will be the best prepared, most adaptable and most proactive - lockdown has shown us that too!
