Home / United Kingdom / First-time buyers
THREE COUNTRIES
First-time buyer property tax is local.
Searching “first-time buyer stamp duty” and then buying in Cardiff or Glasgow with an English answer is how people mis-budget a deposit.
In England and Northern Ireland, if you and anyone you buy with are first-time buyers and the price is £500,000 or less, the first £300,000 is at 0% and the slice to £500,000 is at 5%. A £400,000 purchase is £5,000, against £10,000 with no relief. Cross £500,000 by even a small amount and the relief is gone. You pay the ordinary table on the whole price. There is no taper.
In Scotland the model on this site widens the LBTT nil-rate band from £145,000 to £175,000 for a first home. It does not import the English £500,000 cliff. In Wales, do not type the English relief into a mental budget. LTT’s main rates already start the nil band at £225,000, and the English first-time buyer rules are not the Welsh statute.
Relief is refused if the purchase is an additional property. The calculator ignores the first-time buyer box when the additional-property box is ticked. Joint buyers generally all have to qualify.
Questions
We are buying together and only one of us has owned before. Do we get relief?
Usually no. First-time buyer relief requires the buyers to be first-time buyers. Check the country you are buying in, not a forum post from another country.
Does the relief apply to buy-to-let?
No. An additional or investment property is the opposite of this relief.
Sources
Check the country before the deposit
An English first-time buyer at £450,000 pays nothing on £300,000 and 5% on £150,000, which is £7,500. The ordinary bill without the relief is higher. At £510,000 the relief is gone and the ordinary table applies to every pound. A Scottish first home on this site widens the LBTT nil-rate band to £175,000 and does not import that cliff. A Welsh purchase should be budgeted on LTT main rates, which already put £0 on the first £225,000, not on the English first-time buyer rules.
Joint buyers generally all have to be first-time buyers. One person who has owned before usually knocks the relief out. The calculator ignores the first-time buyer box when the additional-property box is ticked.
£500,000 and the pound after it
At £500,000 an English or Northern Ireland first-time buyer pays 5% of £200,000, which is £10,000. Ordinary SDLT without the relief on that price is £0 on £125,000, 2% of £125,000 (£2,500), and 5% of £250,000 (£12,500), which is £15,000. The relief is worth £5,000 at the cap. At £500,001 the relief is not reduced. It is withdrawn. The ordinary table applies to the whole price, and the bill jumps by more than the extra pound of price.
Scotland and Wales do not use this cap. Run those purchases with the country set correctly in the stamp duty calculator.