Stamp Duty Land Tax Threshold Change 1st April 2025

21 March, 2025

The CLC has been made aware of attempts by some conveyancers representing buyers to amend agreed conditions of sale so that, in the event that a transaction does not complete by 31st March, either:

• the purchase will not proceed at all; or
• the agreed sale price will be reduced to mitigate the higher SDLT payment that will be due from 1st April. 

The CLC urges conveyancers to exercise extreme caution before agreeing changes to the standard conditions of sale. If parties are content to amend those, conveyancers must have a permanent record of consent to the amendments that clearly demonstrates that the clients have understood the impact of those changes in the relevant scenarios. 

Such attempted amendments may indicate that the buyer has not been properly advised of the potential impact on them of the 1 April increase to the SDLT threshold. We remind conveyancers of the need to ensure that buyers understand that their transaction cannot be guaranteed to complete ahead of such tax changes.

Our Advisory Note on the risks arising from SDLT holidays sets out the issues for conveyancers.

You might also be interested in this recent guidance from the Legal Ombudsman in relation to complaints handling around the SDLT threshold.