George Osborne today announced a £250m package to help 10,000 first-time buyers get onto the property ladder in the Budget today.
The Firstbuy Direct scheme will help buyers struggling to get a deposit together, the opportunity to take up a five-year interest-free loan of up to 80% of the deposit, reported this morning suggested.
The scheme is set to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of the Labour government’s Homebuy Direct Scheme, which ended last autumn.
2011 Budget: Key Points
* Fuel duty to be cut by 1p per litre from 6pm tonight. Fuel duty escalator that adds 1p to fuel duty on top of inflation each year to be cancelled for the rest of this Parliament.
* Personal tax allowance to rise by £630 to £8,105 in April 2012 – a real increase of £48 a year or £126 in cash terms
* Charge on non-domiciled taxpayers to increase from £30,000 for those here for seven years to £50,000 for those in the country for 12 years, raising more than £200m
* Small business rate relief holiday extended by one year to October 2012, at a cost of £370m
* Cutting fuel duty by 1p per litre this year. To take effect in petrol stations from 6pm tonight
* Support for Mortgage Interest scheme extended by one year to January 2013, reducing mortgage arrears
Courtesy of The Independent Network Of Estate Agents