Here’s what happened in Scotland.
Land and Building Transaction Tax is Scotland’s version of stamp duty, applied to resi and commercial property. As with stamp duty, the Scottish Government created an LBTT holiday in July 2020 in response to concern over how Coronavirus would hit the housing market.
But unlike the Westminster government, in Scotland, the holiday came to an end on March 31 this year. From April 1 in Scotland, transaction volumes and prices immediately took a hit – and, on the surface, quite a big one.
The Office for National Statistics house price index showed average prices dropping in April after rising for 11 months in a row. The month-on-month fall was quite dramatic – down 4.1 per cent – although the annual growth rate was still 6.3 per cent. More important for agents, completed transactions fell by 35 per cent.
However, hold on – this is not a bad news story.
That’s because although hard data since April is limited (it’s just a few months since the LBTT holiday ended) it appears from agent comments that demand and prices have both…
