Stamp duty change for property exchanges

A useful change in the budget is the removal of the connected persons test where properties are swapped. This was always a pretty crazy rule but essentially it said that if: A owned B worth £230K, and C who was A's brother owned D worth 100K and they were to just swap properties the Stamp duty would be based on the combined total. Meaning that they'd both pay stamp duty of 3% even though A is only acquiring a property worth £100K which is under the stamp duty threshold. Now the new rules mean that the stamp duty is based on the value of the property actually acquired - which is in line with common sense (although you'd be right in thinking that tax and common sense don't usually go hand in hand!)