Stamp duty cut won’t help first-time buyers

SIR – Reductions in stamp duty are very likely to prompt price increases, further reducing housing affordability and quickly wiping out any illusory financial gain for purchasers. Moreover, any shortfall in revenue would require other taxes to rise.

The Conservative Party’s future success is wholly entwined with its capacity to help young people get on to the property ladder. Interventionist policies providing state subsidies to first-time buyers under 40, and reforms that compel developers to increase the supply of starter homes, would trump Labour’s promises on student debt and council houses. Philip Duly

Haslemere, Surrey

SIR – It is not only Scotland where the contract in a house purchase becomes binding at an early stage (Letters, August 10). Here in New Zealand a legally binding contract is drawn up by the estate agent as soon as the parties agree to the sale and purchase.

A written form of contract, approved by the Law Society, is employed and is usually a conditional one, allowing one of the parties to withdraw only if a particular event does or does not occur. One such event might be the inability of a buyer to obtain a particular size of mortgage.

When I moved to New Zealand, I was astonished to discover how well this regime worked.

Perhaps Britain could also have a look at some other features of the housing market here, such as the fact that there is no stamp duty, capital gains or inheritance tax. Roy Wade

Auckland, New Zealand

SIR – Colin Buckton (Letters, August 11) suggests that most people “will have seen the value of their property increase many times” since they got on the property ladder.

In 30 years, possibly because of the huge estates going up nearby, the value of my property, in an outer suburb of the county town, has only doubled. Meanwhile the purchasing power of the pound has halved.

I am not complaining, but the big rises in property prices are not universal. Keith Ferris

Coxheath, Maidstone