Almost one in 10 homes currently for sale in London could have been caught by the mansion tax if the Government had lowered its threshold from £2m to £1.5m, research suggests.
Analysis by Yopa finds 11,316 properties currently listed in the capital have asking prices of at least £1.5m, equivalent to 9.4% of London’s available housing stock.
The Government has reportedly ruled out reducing the threshold for the High Value Council Tax Surcharge, which is due to come into effect in April 2028.
At the existing £2m threshold, 6,963 London properties currently exceed the cut-off, representing 5.8% of homes for sale.
4,353 LONDON HOMES
Yopa calculates that lowering the threshold to £1.5m would therefore have brought another 4,353 properties currently on the London market within the potential tax bracket.
Across England, 11,848 of the 792,456 homes currently for sale are listed for £2m or more, equivalent to 1.5% of stock.
Reducing the threshold to £1.5m would increase that to 22,092 properties, or 2.8% of available homes – an additional 10,244 properties.
The impact would be concentrated heavily in London, which accounts for 59% of properties currently listed above £2m.
LONDON IMPACT
Verona Frankish (main picture), Chief Executive Officer of Yopa, says: “The concern has always been that £1.5m doesn’t necessarily buy you a mansion in London.
“In many parts of the capital, this is the price of a perfectly ordinary family home, and lowering the threshold would have risked unfairly penalising homeowners who are property wealthy on paper, but aren’t necessarily enjoying the lifestyle or disposable income that the term ‘mansion tax’ implies.”
The South East would have the next greatest exposure to a £1.5m threshold, with 5,025 homes – 3.4% of current stock – listed at or above that level.
