House and flat sales plummeted by nearly two-thirds last month after buyers rushed to beat the stamp duty deadline.
The provisional seasonally adjusted estimate of residential transactions in July was 73,740, or 62.8% lower than in June when it jumped to 198,400, according to HM Revenue & Customs.
The non-seasonally adjusted figure for July, 82,110, was well-below the average for the first half of the year of 145,000 a month.
But despite the drop-off, the HMRC data showed purchases were still 1.8% higher than in July last year, when activity was still hit by the near-total housing market closure from March until mid-May.
