Stewart Milne Homes, Scotland’s leading independent 5-star house-builder, has welcomed the increase in the LBTT threshold announced in the Scottish Government’s Budget but believe more could have been done to boost the housing market.
Gerry More, managing director of Stewart Milne Homes Central, said: “Overall, the Scottish housing market has shown signs of recovery in 2017 and the latest guarantee and loan-based schemes will help attract additional private investment and support new house-building.
“The zero rate threshold for LBTT has been lifted from £145,000 to £175,000, enabling more people to get onto the property ladder. Equally, the continued extension into 2018/19 of the Help to Buy Scheme is good news for first time buyers.
“There is a very modest £150m for the Building Scotland Fund but this includes commercial property and R&D as well as housebuilding. In addition, the £600m to provide superfast broadband to every home is welcomesd.
“Various measures were put forward in the UK Budget to fix the broken housing market and we were waiting to see how this new investment was going to be ring-fenced for housing by the Scottish Government. This is not yet clear and, while we welcome the statement of intent by the Scottish Government to harness increased investment in housing, we will wait and see how much and by what means this will be achieved.
“To further boost the sector and meet demand, we now await the new planning bill to see how the Scottish Government proposes to streamline the system to ensure that house building is accelerated.”