New bill aims to provide financial relief to first-time home buyers in Delaware

Legislation introduced on Tuesday looks to allow first time home buyers the ability to receive some financial relief.

This comes after lawmakers increased the state's portion of the transfer tax by 1% in 2017. That 1% increase was split 50-50 between the buyer and seller.

A transfer tax is a transaction fee imposed on the transfer of title, to property. This type of tax is typically imposed in transfers of real estate, shares or bond.

Revenue from Delaware's transfer tax is given to the county and state, and the buyer and seller split the cost of both portions.

House bill 380 exempts first-time homebuyers from paying the buyer's share of the 1-percent increase, and create a credit. 

Representatives believe providing relief from a portion of the realty transfer tax would further encourage people to buy homes in Delaware, therefore helping out the local economy and they say, this is the least they could do.

Representative Pete Schwartzkopf (D) District 14 said, "We have a lot of people moving here and last year when we added the one percent real estate tax, it hit the real estate community pretty hard and this was giving something back to them to give people the incentive to buy homes."

This legislation is retroactive, meaning any first-time homebuyer who bought a home in Delaware either on or after August 1st, 2017 would be able to apply and receive a refund through the Delaware Division of Revenue.

House Bill 380 has been assigned to the House Economic Development, Banking, Insurance and Commerce committee.