House sales slumped by nearly two thirds last month as activity cooled after the end of the full stamp duty holiday, new figures have shown. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said an estimated 82,110 residential property sales took place in July, down 62 percent on June’s record levels. It compares with a frenzied June for Britain’s property market, when HMRC reported 213,120 sales, the highest monthly UK total since the introduction of the statistics in April 2005 and more than double numbers seen a year earlier. HMRC said that, following last month’s stamp duty deadline, “an expected but noticeable decrease has been observed within provisional July 2021 UK residential transactions statistics.” In England and Northern Ireland, buyers raced to complete purchases before the temporarily increased “nil rate” band to £500,000 ($686,000) for residential stamp duty land tax (SDLT) ended on June 30. This relief has since been tapered to £250,000 …
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