The abolition of Stamp Duty for the Over 60s?

Having spent the last 10 years designing and building new homes for “downsizers” I was interested to hear the item on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning posing the question: “Should people over the age of 60 be encouraged to move into smaller homes to help tackle the housing shortage?”

Knowing what a challenge it is for folk to make the break from a family home in which the children have all grown up, I have also witnessed the release enjoyed by those who have come to terms with the fact that the children have all left! Oh, and by the way, when the children left they didn’t take all their belongings with them and so their rooms are still crammed with school mementoes, clothes they will never wear again and much besides. Shrines to their youth!

“I wish we had done it 10 years ago” said one of our early residents at Pittville Place in Cheltenham (see www.pittvilleplace.com) “Our new home is generously proportioned - so we don’t feel that we are moving from an Old Rectory and squeezing our lives into a shoe-box. But now we only have 2 bedrooms – one for us and one for guests”. Another purchaser who, with his wife, had become enslaved to a beautiful but large garden explained the release that he now felt at being able to “lock up and leave” at the week-ends.

These days, of course, barriers preventing a “downsizing” move are not inconsiderable. My own parents in law, having recently moved to be closer to my wife and me as they now approach their eighties would be the first to admit that, when they first contemplated moving earlier this year, they had not reckoned with the sleepless nights that the move would entail. Having said that, following endless trips to the sale-room and the dump to off load the non essential contents of their old home there is no question that, in their new home, conveniently located in anticipation of the time when they eventually will no longer be able to drive, they are convinced that the logic of their choice was overwhelming.

Anything that the government can do to encourage a trend that would free up larger family homes for those who have yet to rear their families and enable those who own them to unburden themselves to enjoy much deserved retirement must be encouraged. Abolishing stamp duty for the over 60s would be a great start!