House sales surged to record levels in June as buyers looked to beat the stamp duty deadline.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said an estimated 213,120 sales took place in June – the highest monthly UK total since the introduction of the statistics in April 2005 reports PA.
The figure was 216.1% higher than June 2020 and 108.5% above that of May 2021.
Some 428,620 house sales took place in the second quarter of this year – the highest quarterly figure since the third quarter of 2007 and the highest total for the second quarter of any year on HMRC’s records.
The report said the June figures “have captured significant impacts from forestalling activity by taxpayers”.
It explained: “Forestalling is when advanced action is taken to prevent an anticipated event.
“For these statistics, forestalling refers to taxpayers completing property transactions earlier to take advantage of government housing market policies.”
In England and Northern Ireland, buyers rushed to complete transactions before the temporarily increased “nil rate” band to £500,000 for residential stamp duty land tax (SDLT) ended on June 30.
