Article: Cold comfort from stamp duty move ; Gordon Brown's bid to kickstart the housing market by announcing a surprise stamp duty cut would have little impact in the West, experts warned yesterday.

Gordon Brown's bid to kickstart the housing market by announcing a surprise stamp duty cut would have little impact in the West, experts warned yesterday.

The Prime Minister claimed the 12-month stamp duty holiday for homes worth pounds175,000 or less would help get the housing market moving.

But the measure will help relatively few people in the West's property hotspots, and allowed the Tories to claim their own policies would do more to benefit Middle England. Expert Malcolm Joy, of Bristol, said the measure should have been made permanent, as withdrawing it on September 3 next year would create problems.

The move, which comes into effect today, raises the threshold for paying one per ...

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