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London Ignored On Stamp Duty - Evening Standard March 06

The Chancellor delivered a snub to London by refusing to raise the exemption on stamp duty to levels that would make any difference to homeowners in the Capital.

He said that he would raise the exemption on the duty to £125,000, while the amount of inheritance exempt from tax will rise over the next four years from £275,000 this year to £325,000 in 2009/10.

But this was dismissed as "derisory" by industry experts who said it did nothing to help people in areas such as London, where the average cost of a home recently hit the £300,000 mark.

Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors economist David Stubbs said "The increase in stamp duty threshold from £120,000 to £125,000 is derisory. It should have gone up to £150,000.

"We are even more dismayed that the Chancellor has once again not seen fit to change the fundamental structure of stamp duty, which distorts the housing market by creating bottlenecks below the threshold for each band."