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Article: First-home buyers in stamp duty trap; Almost half of Scottish house hunters caught by soaring prices
- Article from:
- Evening Times
- Article date:
- March 4, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2004 Evening Times. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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ALMOST half of first-time home buyers in Scotland are now being
hit by stamp duty.
The tax, which was originally designed to target people buying
only the most expensive homes, now affects three in every four first-
time buyers across the UK.
In Scotland the figure has now hit 44%, a massive jump from just
10% in 1994.
With the average house price in Glasgow (pounds) 105,000, and
prices set to soar by a further 12% in the next 12 months, more and
more homes are breaking the (pounds) 60,000 threshold when stamp duty
kicks in.
The figures were revealed by the Nationwide Building Society.
It immediately called on the government to take action to help
already hard pressed first-time buyers ...