Date Published 14 September 2020
If you want to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday, you may think you have plenty of time to sell your property before the 31 March 2021 deadline. But when you factor in the average time it takes to complete on a property once an offer is accepted, 12 weeks, the March deadline doesn't seem too far away. Even more so when you consider that figure doesn't include time for your own property search or any of the common hurdles along the way.
When do I need to market my property?
By using Land Registry and NAEA Propertymark Housing Market Report data, we have calculated the date you need to have your property on the market to realistically sell it in time for 31 March:
From receiving an offer once the property is on the market can take around ten weeks, your buyer arranging a solicitor can take well over a month and arranging their mortgage can take up to six weeks, and that's just a few of the tasks the buyer has to tick off. The solicitors, surveyors and estate agent will also all have their own tasks to complete before the job is done. When all combined, the average time it takes to sell a property from going on the market to completion is six months.
With this in mind, you should give yourself plenty of time to sell your property so that you have the best possible chance to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday. By getting your property on the market by 26 September, you will do just that.
