Preparing for the SDLT Relief Deadline

Stamp Duty Land Tax relief is due to cease on 31 March 2021, any agreement to a tapering of inflight transactions appears to be doubtful.

To limit the impact this deadline may cause on lenders and law firms alike; the majority of our lender clients have extended their standard COT submission window for up to 10 days to support the expected increase in activity.

All funds requests will be processed as quickly as possible, it is therefore vital that transactions which are predicted to achieve the 31 March deadline must have their funds request submitted at the earliest opportunity.

Where possible-

• Allow 10 working days between the COT submission to the completion date
• Ensure there are no issues to be raised with the lender
• Ensure the offers are still valid prior to submission
• Encourage borrowers, where possible, to complete before the last two weeks in March
• Agree only vital telephone calls are made to the lenders during this time

Please note: the above does not apply in all environments, individual articles, timescales, and updates may be provided by individual lenders separate to this article.