Who is classed as a first time buyer?

The general definition of a first-time buyer is a person buying a house or a flat who has never owned one before and has no property to sell. Basically, you aren’t a homeowner, an investor or simply mortgaging or re-mortgaging an existing home.

This seems pretty obvious, so why is everybody talking about whether they are classed as a first-time buyer or not? Well, last autumn the government announced that there would be no stamp duty for first-time buyers on properties up to the value of £300,000 starting from the 22nd of Nov 2017. For everybody else, the stamp duty tax is only exempt on properties less than £125,000.

To be able to qualify for the stamp duty exemption, the property you are buying must be your main home. You can’t use the exemption for buy-to-let properties, or second homes and you can’t use it either if you have ever owned or jointly owned a property in another country before.