Did you know that you don't pay VAT if you're building a new house, but are liable for the standard 17.5% on renovating an old house?
Sarah Beeny, presenter of Channel 4's Property Ladder, will be at the Birmingham NEC next week with the Federation of Master Builders (FMB), the construction industry's largest trade association, to highlight the unfair discrepancy between tax payable on building new homes and that on renovating old buildings.
"I support the FMB, which represents over 13,000 small and medium sized firms, in their campaign to bring the tax breaks for renovating old buildings someway in line with new buildings. By reducing the VAT from 17.5% to 5%, this would level out the discrepancy,"Sarah said.
"In this country there is lack of land, environmental concerns and a large number of tired buildings in need of work, including 500, 000 empty homes. There are far more old buildings than there are green spaces to build new homes on, but the current situation encourages people to either knock down old buildings and start again or find land to build from scratch." There's no incentive to do up your old home," says the TV presenter.
Sarah will be appearing in the FMB seminar Money, Money, Money at the HomeBuilding & Renovating Show, NEC Birmingham at 12.30 on 14 April.
During the FMB panel Sarah will be looking at the way would-be developers can best finance their projects and how best to prepare for such a project.
First posted: 06 April 2005. Last modified: 06 April 2005.
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