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Stamp duty is one of the main reasons that we are not downsizing at the moment.
I would like to downsize now that we don't have a family living at home and then downsize again once we are both fully retired but if we do that we will be wasting £15,000 in stamp duty (plus all the other costs) on the intermediate move.

Also, if the government are going to develop "an improved version of council tax" then I suggest that for residential properties it should be based on the actual size of the property, not the value.
This would mean that a 100sq.m. house would be in the same tax band wherever it was in the country. Simple. Works forever without complicated back calculations of what the house might have been 'worth' 20 years ago etc etc.