Stamp duty you have paid

RISING house prices and fixed stamp duty levels mean the average home mover now spends nearly £12,000 (£11,800) on stamp duty as they move up the housing ladder, with the annual stamp duty bill in England and Wales rising by £900m to £5.6bn in the year to March 2014.

Lloyds Bank research looked at those homeowners who bought their first property in 1998, their second in 2006 and their third in 2014, living in typical homes at each step. Not surprisingly the highest overall stamp duty costs are faced by buyers in London and the South East.

In London home buyers pay close to three-and-a-half times as much as the rest of England and Wales (£38,000). In the South East the lifetime cost is £16,500, followed by the South West (£11,500) and the West Midlands (£10,000).

The lowest stamp duty costs are in Wales — £3,718 — a third of the UK average. In 1998, based on the average prices of first time buyer homes, stamp duty would only be a factor for those buying in London and the South East. By the time these people were ready to move on to their next home (in 2006), the average stamp duty for their new property had risen to £1,898. In May 2014, those buyers moving on to their “final” home would face an average stamp duty bill of close to £9,800. Marc Page, Lloyds Bank mortgages director at Lloyds Bank, said: “Stamp duty bills continue to increase each year as house prices rise.”

The average