Find the best estate agent near you Start here
Post updated: November 2nd, 2026
KEY INFORMATION
Here’s the latest UK property tax news for November 2026, including developments affecting stamp duty, council tax and the mansion tax.
The Government published its response to the mansion tax consultation on 28 October 2026. It confirmed plans for payment deferrals, exemptions and discounts, alongside a double charge for qualifying long-term empty homes. Legislation and further regulations will set out how the scheme operates.
The empty-home premium follows consultation on a possible non-resident premium. It will depend on the property’s condition and occupation, rather than whether its owner lives overseas
Chancellor John Healey ruled out lowering the mansion tax threshold from £2 million to £1.5 million before the Autumn Budget on 28 October, according to The Times.
The Government had reportedly been considering lowering the threshold, which would have brought thousands more homeowners into the tax.
However, the proposal faced opposition from Labour MPs concerned about the impact on family homes in London and the South East.
The mansion tax is still due to apply to homes in England valued at £2 million or more from April 2028, with annual charges of £2,500 to £7,500.
Homes worth £2 million or more are selling at an average discount of almost £285,000 amid concerns about the incoming mansion tax, The Telegraph reports.
The average discount on properties valued at £2 million or more has reached £284,583 so far in 2026, compared with almost £244,000 a year earlier.
Meanwhile, homes worth more than £2 million are now less than half as likely to sell as cheaper properties, new research by property data firm TwentyCi found.
Its analysis found that 53.1% of homes listed below £2 million reached exchange stage between June and September this year. For properties above the £2 million threshold, the figure fell to just 25%, The Standard reports.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has pledged to scrap stamp duty on main homes, abolish the planned mansion tax and remove inheritance tax on family homes if her party wins the next general election.
Speaking at the Conservative Party Conference on 7 October 2026, she also announced plans to increase the tax-free inheritance allowance for other assets to £500,000 per person, allowing couples to pass on an additional £1 million tax-free.
However, these are Conservative Party pledges, not Government policy, and existing property tax rules remain unchanged.
Homeowners are expected to find out in autumn 2027 whether their property could be subject to the mansion tax, giving them around six months before the new charge starts in April 2028, The Times reports.
HMRC chief executive John-Paul Marks told the Treasury Committee that the Valuation Office is drawing up a draft list of properties that could be affected, using information including planning records, publicly available property sale prices and data already held by the Valuation Office.
HMRC is also bringing an extra 300 staff into its valuation department to help deal with the new tax, including carrying out checks and handling challenges and appeals.
Marks said home visits would only be used as a “last resort” and with the homeowner’s agreement.
Four London councils have called on the Government to rethink the mansion tax, claiming that their residents could pay around £270 million a year – more than half the £400 million the tax is expected to raise, reports The Times.
Wandsworth, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Richmond councils have written to Chancellor John Healey arguing that the tax will disproportionately affect their residents.
The councils also warned that some people living in homes worth more than £2 million may have relatively modest incomes, including pensioners and long-standing homeowners whose properties have risen significantly in value.
Nearly 24% of homes in Westminster and 30% in Kensington and Chelsea are worth £2 million or more, according to Institute for Fiscal Studies figures cited by The Times. The equivalent figures are 4.4% in Wandsworth and 6.1% in Richmond, compared with less than 1% nationally.
Andy Burnham ruled out changing or scrapping stamp duty before the recent Budget.
Asked whether stamp duty would be changed or abolished, the Prime Minister said: “Yes, I can say that quite clearly. That won’t be happening.”
He also rejected reports that the Government was preparing to replace stamp duty and council tax with a single annual property tax, saying: “It’s just not the case that we are bringing forward plans on that scale at this moment in time.”
For buyers and movers, this means the existing stamp duty system will remain in place for now and there is no need to delay a transaction in anticipation of stamp duty being abolished any time soon.
However, the PM said the Government was still seeking “to make taxation fairer”, so more limited property tax changes could be considered in future.
In his first major interview as Prime Minister, with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, Burnham criticised regional inequalities in the council tax system.
He said: “There are people here in Greater Manchester who pay a much higher council tax than people living in much larger homes in London.”
Burnham highlighted the failure to update council tax bands, which are still based on property values from 1991, and described previous moves to make owners of more valuable homes contribute more as “right and fair”.
However, he did not announce a replacement for council tax. He also said that any future changes would need to be consistent with Labour’s election manifesto.
Around two-fifths of homes estimated to be worth £1.5 million or more have never had a sale recorded by the Land Registry, according to new research, reports the Financial Times.
The newspaper says the figures underline the scale of the challenge facing the government in ‘judging with any confidence’ which homes in England will be liable for its planned mansion tax.
Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla, said: “There is a lot more complexity to valuation in the top 1 per cent of the housing market. The challenge is, how do you build confidence that the valuations are correct?”
If the planned mansion tax were brought in today it would affect significantly fewer homes than if it had been enacted when the policy was announced in November, valuation data shows, reports The Financial Times.
Estate agent Hamptons created an automated valuation model that showed how the number of homes above £2 million has changed over time, even when a home had not been sold for a long period.
Its analysis showed there were 8,800 fewer £2 million plus homes in England than when the mansion tax was announced in the autumn Budget.
“This fall is likely to mean the tax raises around £28 million less per year than it would have done in November 2025, or around £50 million a year less than if it had been introduced in 2022,” said Aneisha Beveridge, research director at Hamptons.
House buyers and sellers are striking deals just below mansion tax thresholds to avoid the tax, The Telegraph reports.
In February 2026, 83% of offers on homes priced within 10% of £2m came in below the £2m mark, compared with just 64% a year earlier, according to data from estate agency Hamptons.
Get instant quotes from Chartered Surveyors in your local area.
Confirmed exemptions include purpose-built student halls, care homes, long-stay hospital accommodation, hospices and qualifying military barracks.
Other categories, including properties owned by registered social housing providers, will receive discounts of up to 100%. Discounts are also planned for working farmhouses, associated farmworker accommodation and qualifying charitable accommodation. Detailed definitions will follow in regulations.
“This means ‘empty nesters’ and people who bought their property decades ago simply as a family home, not as an investment, will now have to cough up thousands just to continue living in their own home,” he said.
HMRC estimates that around 150,000 individuals who own residential properties worth £2 million or more will be affected. Around 15,000 businesses and civil society organisations are also expected to be affected.
Homeowners in London and the South East would bear most of the brunt of the new property tax. Around 50% of all properties in England valued at £2 million or more are in London, while around 85% are in London and the South East combined, Hamptons analysis shows.
Paula Higgins, CEO of HomeOwners Alliance, said:
“It’s clear the government wants higher-value homes to contribute more. Now the mansion tax consultation has closed, homeowners need clarity about how valuations, appeals, payment arrangements and exemptions will work in practice. We remain sceptical about whether the revaluation needed for this mansion tax can be delivered cleanly and on time.
“Another key concern for homeowners is whether this is the thin end of the wedge? Once measures are introduced, they have a habit of being extended or thresholds not being updated, and more people end up paying tax as a result. This mansion tax could quickly become relevant for more homeowners than the Chancellor anticipates.
“We expect these arbitrary thresholds of a mansion tax will distort the market, which OBR has recognised will cause bunching of sales just below the thresholds.”
The main UK property taxes are:
In the Autumn Budget 2026, the Chancellor announced a further two percentage point increase in property income tax rates from 6 April 2027. This comes on top of the two percentage point increase announced in last year’s Budget.
Individual landlords in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will pay the following rates on rental profits after allowable expenses:
| Tax band | Current rate | Rate from April 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| Basic rate | 20% | 24% |
| Higher rate | 40% | 44% |
| Additional rate | 45% | 49% |
The new rates are four percentage points higher than today’s rates. They do not apply to landlords who own their properties through a limited company.
Read more about what the Autumn Budget means for homeowners and landlords, or see our guide to Buy to Let mortgages and the tax implications.
Homeowners up and down the country started to worry ahead of the 2025 Budget when former Chancellor Rachel Reeves left open the idea of higher property taxes at the Labour Party Conference on 29 September 2025.
Before the 2025 Budget, reports suggested that the Government could consider replacing stamp duty with a national proportional property tax charged on homes above a certain value.
Officials were also reported to be considering whether a new local property tax could eventually replace council tax.
Neither proposal appeared in the Budget.
Following further speculation in July 2026, new Prime Minister Andy Burnham explicitly ruled out changing or scrapping stamp duty in the next Budget. He also rejected reports that the Government was preparing to replace stamp duty and council tax with a single annual property tax at this stage.
However, Burnham has continued to criticise the unfairness of the council tax system. So watch this space. Read more about how this could affect you in Andy Burnham’s Potential Policies: What they could mean for homeowners and sign up to our newsletter to be the first to know.
The new mansion tax will be paid by homeowners whose properties in England are valued at £2 million or more. It will be the property owner, rather than the occupier or tenant, who is liable for the tax. The planned surcharge will be added to existing council tax bills from April 2028, with annual charges ranging from £2,500 to £7,500 depending on the value of the property.
Further UK property tax changes are possible beyond 2026. The government has already confirmed that property income tax rates will rise from April 2027, increasing costs for many landlords. While wider reforms such as replacing stamp duty or council tax have not gone ahead, experts warn that thresholds and charges introduced under new property taxes, including the mansion tax, may be reviewed or extended over time.
There have been reports that the threshold could be reduced from £2 million to £1.5 million, but the Government has not confirmed this.
Analysis by Tax Policy Associates estimates that around 150,000 additional homes could be affected if the threshold were reduced. Until a formal announcement is made, homeowners should treat this as speculation rather than confirmed policy. Read more in our guide to mansion tax valuations
October 28, 2026
October 14, 2026
October 5, 2026
October 1, 2026 
