By price
Stamp duty on a £450,000 property
Close to what a first-time buyer pays on average in London, and the price HMRC uses for its shared ownership example.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How we calculate
A first-time buyer paying £450,000 in England or Northern Ireland owes £7,500 of Stamp Duty Land Tax: nothing on the first £300,000, then 5% on £150,000. A buyer who has owned before pays £12,500, and a buyer of an additional property £35,000. The price matters in London, where first-time buyers paid £466,851 on average in July 2026 according to the UK House Price Index, a purchase that costs £8,342 with the relief. It is also the figure in HMRC’s own shared ownership example: a first-time buyer who elects to pay on the full £450,000 market value pays £7,500 once, and nothing more on later shares. Paying in stages instead taxes only the share bought, which for a share of a quarter or less comes to nothing. In Scotland the same price costs £18,350 of LBTT and in Wales £14,250 of Land Transaction Tax, with no relief for first-time buyers in Wales.
More options: commercial property, company relief
Stamp Duty Land Tax · England and Northern Ireland
£12,500
2.8% of £450,000 · rule applied: Standard residential rates
| Portion | Rate | Tax |
|---|---|---|
| £0 to £125,000 | 0% | £0 |
| £125,000 to £250,000 | 2% | £2,500 |
| £250,000 to £925,000 | 5% | £10,000 |
Return and payment due within 14 days of completion.
Same purchase elsewhere in the UK
The London first-time buyer at £450,000
The UK House Price Index for July 2026 gives £466,851 as the average price paid by first-time buyers across London, against £550,037 for all London purchases. The first figure sits inside the English first-time buyer relief; the second does not, because it exceeds the £500,000 price limit. For a London first purchase the band therefore matters: below the limit, each extra £10,000 costs £500 in tax; above it, the relief is lost on the whole price.
| Area | First-time buyer average | SDLT with relief | SDLT without relief |
|---|---|---|---|
| London (region) | £466,851 | £8,342 | £13,342 |
| Lewisham | £431,343 | £6,567 | £11,567 |
| Hounslow | £458,624 | £7,931 | £12,931 |
| Lambeth | £471,431 | £8,571 | £13,571 |
| Southwark | £501,031 | £15,051 | £15,051 |
Southwark shows the edge in practice: its first-time buyer average of £501,031 is just above the limit, so the relief is lost and both columns are the same. In Lewisham and Hounslow the relief still applies, and the saving is the full £5,000 that it is worth anywhere between £300,000 and the limit.
A buyer at £450,000 keeps £50,000 of headroom. The London page covers the boroughs one by one.
Shared ownership on a £450,000 home
Shared ownership lets a buyer purchase a share of a home and pay rent on the rest. For SDLT, there are two ways to be taxed (GOV.UK). With a market value election, tax is paid once on the full market value, and later shares are free. GOV.UK’s example is precisely a £450,000 home bought by a first-time buyer with the election, which comes to £7,500. Without the election, tax is paid on the price of the share bought now; nothing more is due on later shares until ownership passes 80%, and then each further share is taxed.
First-time buyer relief applies to both methods when the market value is £500,000 or less (SDLTM29880), which is the case here. The rent paid on the landlord’s share is left out of the table below.
| What is taxed | First-time buyer | Has owned before |
|---|---|---|
| 25% share (£112,500) | £0 | £0 |
| 40% share (£180,000) | £0 | £1,100 |
| 50% share (£225,000) | £0 | £2,000 |
| 75% share (£337,500) | £1,875 | £6,875 |
| Market value election (full value) | £7,500 | £12,500 |
For a first-time buyer, paying in stages costs nothing on any share up to £300,000, which covers a 66% share at this value. The shared ownership calculator adds later staircasing.
The same price north and west of the border
Scotland and Wales apply their own rules to shared ownership and shared equity, which this page does not model; Revenue Scotland and the Welsh Revenue Authority set them out. On an outright purchase at £450,000, LBTT is £18,350, or £17,750 for a first-time buyer, and Land Transaction Tax is £14,250 for every buyer of an only home, first-time or not. The English first-time buyer therefore pays the least of the three by a wide margin.