Chancellor Rishi Sunak has confirmed the window to take advantage of stamp duty holiday will slam shut on 31 March.
Documents published by the Treasury as part of his Spending Review show the increase nil-rate band threshold to £500,000 runs until 31 March 2021 - with no money made available after that.
That's despite warnings from across the industry that thousands of house sales could collapse at once without an extension.
Martijn van der Heijden, from mortgage company Habito, said: “We, along with others in the industry, had called on the Government for an extension of the tax holiday. Sadly, this hasn’t come today."
The problem is that buyers are making offers taking the stamp duty holiday worth up to £15,000 into account.
But the combination of pent up demand from buyers during lockdown and the opportunity of a hefty discount means there is currently a surge of property transactions in progress across the country.
So big a surge, in fact, that lawyers are struggling to keep up. And if, as seems likely, the delays mean that if sale isn't completed by 31 March, all of a sudden people will find themselves having to fork out thousands more than they expected.
In response to the risk, the Home Buying and Selling Group - made up of a coalition of senior estate agents, lawyers, conveyancers, surveyors, removal firms and more - wrote to the Chancellor asking for urgent action.
"We are concerned that the home buying and selling industry does not have sufficient capacity to deal with this surge in demand caused by the need for completions to be concentrated into a limited window," group chair Kate Faulkner wrote ahead of the Spending Review.
"Failure to complete those transactions could see the breakdown of chains with consumers potentially financially unable to continue with the purchase, as they would have to find funds to pay Stamp Duty."
She added: "We are concerned that consumers continue to offer on properties expecting to benefit from the SDLT rate reduction but in reality they may be too late.
"We believe urgent action is required."
That action does not seem to have happened, but there is something you can to help, however.
“Whether or not buyers make the tax holiday deadline at this stage is hugely dependent on their situation and the circumstances of their seller and other parties involved in the process," van der Heijden said.
"In general, our advice to anyone who has just had an offer accepted on a property is to speak to a mortgage broker now, appoint a solicitor today and don’t be the reason for any delays - get your paperwork going immediately.
"And, if you can, it would be prudent to set aside now your full stamp duty tax liability just in case you do end up completing your house purchase on or after 1 April 2021.”
