At the beginning of July, the Government temporarily increased the stamp duty threshold to £500,000 for property sales in England and Northern Ireland. Anyone completing on a main residence costing up to £500,000 will not pay any stamp duty, and more expensive properties will only be taxed on their value above that amount. The move was intended to boost the property market which was hit during Covid-19 lockdown, but also to help buyers who may have taken a financial hit because of the Coronavirus crisis. The stamp duty holiday therefore is now well under-way, however, remember that in order to benefit from this financial windfall, the completion of the property sale needs to have taken place by March 31st 2021.

EARLY BIRD ALERT - A great opportunity to acquire an immaculately presented detached family home of charm and character situated in a semi-rural location on the fringe of the village with a most private south west facing rear garden of a good size, enclosed with extensive lawn and a secluded patio. Offering an interesting internal layout and having been recently configurated and refurbished to a very high standard. No Chain.

Covid-19 has changed the way people work and live, we hope that people are weathering the storm, staying safe and adapting to the new ‘normal’ When David and I opened our Estate Agency business in Bramhope at the end of 2018, who would have thought a little over twelve months on when Covid-19 resulted in a lockdown, a ‘short term’ business pause, followed thankfully by just over a month of our office being open again, we are now working in the new ‘normal’ way too. I am using this morning (Trudy is back in the office for the first time which is great for us) to reflect on how things have changed in the Estate Agency world and how our business was thankfully future-proofed from the start to allow for a new normal way of working. People sell houses, enabled by the best technology and modern sales techniques was our mantra right from the start – this is serving us well in the following ways:-

As a person who likes variety, meeting people and lots of challenges, the Covid-19 Lockdown was something that I thought would be a different ‘challenge’ to me, so one week one I thought I would write an update on my progress and how my priorities have changed