Ending stamp duty could unblock the housing market log-jam

SIR – I thoroughly agree with your leading article (“End stamp duty and unleash the economy”, August 9).

Homeowners have already paid tax on their nest egg to get on the property ladder and climb up it. Stamp duty levels brought in by George Osborne have clogged up the market and given credibility to Jeremy Corbyn’s ideology of class war.

Philip Hammond can reverse this foolishness and help unblock the housing jam for all. Tony Devenish

Member, London Assembly (Con)

SIR – The damage caused to house sales by the Treasury’s hike in stamp duty is clearly indisputable.

George Osborne and his successor only saw the quick wins: potential for increased tax revenue and a political gesture to appease the mainstream Left. Positive action to help the wider domestic economy is urgently needed.

A quick first step, and a solution that would satisfy Treasury demands as well as reviving activity in the housing supply, would be to divide stamp duty equally between buyer and seller.

This would be fairer than the current system. It would also be politically neutral and ease the burden on first-time buyers. John Naylor

London SW20

SIR – The last people who need relief from stamp duty are pensioners who are downsizing. Most, like me, will have seen their property value increase many times since they got on to the housing ladder.

No, if anyone needs help it’s the first-time buyers. Colin Buckton

Harpenden, Hertfordshire

SIR – In London, conversion stress – a blanket ban on dividing up houses in certain areas – is also limiting the availability of suitable housing.

If older people living in larger homes were permitted to divide them, they would avoid the financial and emotional costs of moving and free up under-utilised spaces.

Conversion stress is based on little if any evidence. The Mayor of London should reassess the policy. John Emerson

London SW2

SIR – Here in south Suffolk, the average house price is almost nine times the average annual income.

What we need from the Government is a holistic approach that cuts stamp duty in a targeted way, but also takes steps to make mortgages affordable, particularly for the young.

Considerably more shared ownership – which allows firsttime buyers to acquire their homes incrementally – is probably the key, and significantly greater central resources should be used to address this. Such an approach would also improve the continuing risk-averse attitude of banks and building societies to lending.

Cllr Alan Ferguson (Con)

Ipswich, Suffolk