Treasury stamp duty income falls across UK - but not in London

Despite dire warnings from some estate agents that stamp duty receipts for the government would plummet in London, it now appears that the SDLT income rose 11 per cent in the capital during 2015-16 according to the latest official figures.

The new rates of duty introduced at the end of 2014 lowered duty on the substantial majority of transactions but sharply increased the levy on most homes sold for in excess of £937,000 - bringing warnings from London agents that Treasury income from the capital would fall.

However, HMRC data just released shows a £340m increase in stamp duty receipts in the capital; the number of transactions in London was up by just under four per cent over the year, at 159,000. 

Outside of the M25 the new rates applying for England and Wales reduced the amount of money collected on home sales - SDLT was down 21 per cent, as widely predicted.

Some £7.3 billion has been collected from SDLT in England and Wales in 2015-16 - almost all of it, £7.2 billion, in England. 

Of that, £3.4 billion came from London sales and £1.6 billion from the south east region outside the M25. Almost a third of receipts, £2.2bn, came from just 10 local authority areas in London and the south east, with Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster accounting for seven per cent each, with receipts of £514m and £513m respectively. In Kensington, buyers paid an average of £135,000 each.

To illustrate the north-south divide, only £55m was collected in the North East of England while in Northern Ireland just £20m was collected.