UK housing crisis being ‘fuelled by stamp duty’

SOARING stamp duty bills are helping to fuel a housing crisis, says the head of one of the world’s largest property groups.

Christian Ulbrich, chief executive of property investment managers Jones Lang LaSalle, said the tax was making it “prohibitive” to build more houses.

“For long-term development, stamp duty is definitely harmful because the duty in itself doesn’t create any value,” Mr Ulbrich said.

“It’s an additional cost that makes development more unattractive and it has to be considered in the pricing.

“Stamp duty doesn’t help to build one single apartment, it just makes it more expensive.”

Mr Ulbrich pointed to figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showing Britain has the highest property taxes in the developed world.

He also criticised the three per cent surcharge – which the Government introduced last April – on buy-to-let properties and second homes.

He said it had a “very strong dampening impact on the market”, adding that it penalised landlords and second homeowners while doing little to address a lack of housing supply.

STAMP duty is discouraging developers from building more houses says Christian Ulbrich, chief executive of property investment manager Jones Lang LaSalle.

A lack of affordable housing is a growing problem in many parts of the country. This is mostly the result of an explosion in demand – much of it driven by mass immigration and the actions of overseas investors who buy properties then leave them empty.

We need a sensible response to these problems but levying punitive rates of stamp duty is, as Mr Ulbrich says, making things worse rather than better.