However, one thing which did rather pop up out of Left Field(as it were) were the alterations to the Higher Rate on Additional Dwellings,announced with 24 hours’ notice and sending the cost of investing in a secondor subsequent residential property up by two percentage points’ worth of SDLTfor every slice, including the nil rate band.
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Doubtless this led to a rush on firms handling these kindsof transactions – if the case was exchanged before the change then the oldrates would apply. It also likely threw spanners in many other transactions, asinvestors, landlords and those looking to buy a property for children studyingat university scrambled to find the additional monies suddenly required.Carefully crafted household budgets will, in many cases, have been thrown intochaos by this abrupt alteration.
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Aside from the change in an of itself and its instructivenature with regards to the new government’s priorities and general ideologicalstance, the change revealed a deeper, more important truth which holds morethan ever about SDLT – its fundamental fluidity. Since its inception,successive governments have used sweeping alterations to SDLT as a sledgehammerto try and crack various – often contradictory – nuts. MDR sought to encourageinvestment in BTL property. HRAD sought to do the opposite. However, the speedof change is what’s important here.
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If a government can make such an impactful change with 24hours’ notice, impacting transactions that traditionally occur over a timescaleof weeks or months, this throws yet another obstacle at firms likely alreadystruggling under the various strains imposed on the property market amidvolatile interest rates, a cost-of-living crisis and an unstable market.Changes this far-reaching, made with this short notice, are something thatfirms must sensibly prepare themselves for, or find themselves drowning.
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Compass clients will have enjoyed a distinct advantage. Oursystems were updated to reflect the change seamlessly, and this holds true forall alterations to SDLT, past and future. When you have a long list of currenttransactions, a switchboard going into meltdown with calls from spooked buyersand sellers and completion deadlines shifting and piling up, the last thing youwant to be worrying about is whether the sums on your SDLT returns are currentand correct. Compass takes that strain for you. We can’t solve all yourproblems, but we can guarantee the ones we solve get solved quickly,effortlessly and effectively.

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