Stamp Duty

Well its finally happened. The Government has finally listened to the industry and tapered stamp duty. For most people, which are typically the buyers of properties worth less than £1 million pounds, you are likely to save hundreds and in some cases thousands of pounds.
Whereas previously you paid stamp duty on the whole purchase price of the property at whatever percentage it was for your banding, you now only pay the percentage for the amount in that banding. Also you no longer pay stamp duty on the first £125,000 whereas again previously once you went past £125,000 the whole amount was included in your banding.
For example; If you buy a house now for say £300,000, the breakdown is nothing on the first £125,000, then 2% on the next £125,000 (banding £125,001 to £250k) and 5% on £50,000 (banding £250,001 to £925,000), therefore £5,000 in stamp duty. Compare to the previous regime whereby it would be 3% on the whole amount, therefore £9,000.
One caveat to this, if you had already exchanged contracts before the 5th December then you could actually choose which regime you wanted pay stamp duty on.