FTBs 'should focus on financing costs rather than tax'

People looking for a first-time buyer mortgage should be considering the type of deal they are looking for and the cost of financing the loan, rather than stamp duty and taxes, it has been claimed.

Commenting on the situation facing first-time buyers (FTBs), a spokesman for the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) said that people will "always raise the issue of stamp duty".

Lakshmi Narain, chairman of the property taxes sub-committee with the CIOT, said: "If I was looking at someone buying their first property, I don't think stamp duty land tax would be the first issue.

"I think the big issue is financing costs and saying, 'do you go for a fixed mortgage or do you go for a variable one?'."

Mr Narain also suggested that it was possible that the stamp duty threshold could be raised as a method to raise favour for the government ahead of the next election.

However he claimed that, in "pure financial terms", such action would be unlikely to make much of a difference to the market.

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