The Times - UK (2021-12-22)

the times | Wednesday December 22 2021 25

News

A booming market in second homes
has boosted Treasury revenue this year,
more than compensating for a stamp
duty holiday that let thousands of
homebuyers off paying tax.
HM Revenue & Customs has taken
£11.44 billion in receipts from the prop-
erty tax so far this year. It is the highest
amount collected in the first 11 months
of a year since 2017.
Rishi Sunak raised the threshold for
stamp duty in England and Northern
Ireland from £125,000 to £500,000
from July 8, 2020, until June 30, 2021,
saving buyers up to £15,000. The
threshold was then dropped to
£250,000 until September 30, when it
reverted to £125,000. There were simi-
lar, although less generous, breaks in
Scotland and Wales.
The tax break applied to all home
purchases, including those of buy-to-

When Oscar Wilde wrote “no man is
rich enough to buy back his past”, he
probably wasn’t thinking about proper-
ty prices.
The Chelsea street where the play-
wright lived when he wrote The Import-
ance of Being Earnest is now the most
expensive in England and Wales —
with average house prices at just under
£30 million, according to new analysis.
Houses in Tite Street in the Royal
Borough Kensington and Chelsea,
which runs from Tedworth Square
south to the River Thames, are valued
at an average of £28.9 million, accord-
ing to research by Halifax bank. Avenue

Oscar Wilde’s property on country’s most expensive street

Road in St John’s Wood, northwest

London, previously held the top spot.

Wilde lived at No 34, a five-storey

red-brick terraced town house not far

from the Chelsea Physic Garden, from

1885 until his arrest for homosexuality

in 1895.

England and Wales’s top ten most ex-

pensive streets are all in London, with

four in the Royal Borough of Kensing-

ton and Chelsea. The second on the list

is Phillimore Gardens, also in Chelsea,

with an average price of just over

£25 million. The bank calculated aver-

age prices based on Land Registry data

on sales from January 2016 to Septem-

ber this year. Some expensive streets,

such as Kensington Palace Gar-

dens,which have previously made the

annual table did not make the top ten

possibly because of too few properties

changing hands in recent years.

Scotland was not included in the re-

search.

The most expensive street outside

London is South Ridge, in the St Ge-

orge’s Hill private estate near Wey-

bridge, where the average house costs

£7.1 million. Famous residents have in-

cluded John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Elton

John and Tom Jones.

Esther Dijkstra, mortgage director at

Halifax, said: “London’s dominance of

the top ten most expensive streets in the

UK continues, with property prices on

some of the most famous roads averag-

ing £19 million. Homes in the south-

east’s most expensive streets will set

you back around £5.5 million.

“Homes in London have not experi-

enced the same meteoric rise as other

regions this year. Buyers with deeper

pockets may be starting to look beyond

the capital for their next grand home.”

The average price on one of the most

expensive streets in both the north and

West Midlands increased 11 per cent in

the year to September. In the northwest

they rose by 5 per cent on average, and

by 4 per cent in the East Midlands. In

London they rose by only 1 per cent.

Prices fell in the southwest by 15 per

cent and by 5 per cent in the east of En-

gland.

Carol Lewis

The average price of a home in Tite

Street in Chelsea is about £30 million

EDWARD FELTON/BRIGHTON PICTURES

Second-home boom boosts tax take

Carol Lewis Deputy Property Editor let properties and second homes,
although the 3 per cent additional
home levy still applied in such cases (or
4 per cent in Wales). More than 24,000
second homes were bought in Britain in
the 12 months before June 30, accord-
ing to the estate agency Hamptons,
many of them in holiday hotspots such
as Cornwall, Devon, north Norfolk and
the Lake District.
Figures published yesterday by
HMRC showed £1.21 billion in stamp
duty revenue in November. This is less
than in October, when £1.32 billion was
collected, but 22 per cent higher than
pre-pandemic levels in November 2019,
according to an analysis of the data by
Coventry Building Society.
Jonathan Stinton, its head of inter-
mediary relationships, said: “It’s been a
big year for the Treasury’s stamp duty
receipts, despite hundreds of thousands
of buyers being exempt from paying it
for the first nine months of 2021. This

shows just how high the demand for

higher-value homes, second homes

and rental properties has been this

year.”

HMRC estimates that in the finan-

cial year 2021-22 there will be 974,310

residential property sales, making it the

busiest year in a decade. The surge in

home moves has been precipitated by

lockdown disillusionment, increased

savings and low mortgage rates. The

combination of these factors led many

people to adjust their lifestyles during

the pandemic: many sought extra space

for home offices and bigger gardens

away from the cities; some wealthier

families decided to acquire second

homes in coastal and country regions.

Lucian Cook, head of residential re-

search at the estate agency Savills, said:

“We estimate that the stamp duty holi-

day amounted to a tax break to home-

buyers of around £6.4 billion, but given

the unexpected strength in the market

despite — or arguably because of —

coronavirus, receipts to the Treasury

have held up remarkably well.

“Over the past 18 months we’ve seen

lifestyle drivers and low interest rates

support incredibly strong levels of

house price growth and a real surge in

activity. The Treasury has particularly

benefited from high transaction vol-

umes at the top end of the market,

where the stamp duty take is highest,

bolstered by the 3 per cent surcharge

[for those buying second homes] over

the period of the stamp duty holiday

and beyond.”

One in 16 homes in the UK are ex-

pected to have changed hands this year,

but the demand far outstrips supply,

and each estate agency branch has an

average of one home for sale for every

24 would-be buyers, according to the

property portal Rightmove. Across the

UK only 400,000 properties are now

for sale.

At this point in 2020 the number was

630,000, the independent property

data analyst TwentyCi said yesterday.

It added that if the property market

continued as it was, all stock would run

out, except in inner London, by the end

of next year. Worst affected would be

the southwest, where there would be no

homes left to sell for seven and a half

months.

Anthony Codling, chief executive of

Twindig, a property platform, said: “We

were surprised that the level of residen-

tial housing transactions bounced back

so quickly after the end of the stamp

duty holiday.

“[It] implies there is more to the un-

derlying level of housing transactions

than the impact of stamp duty holidays

alone. The pandemic is having a signifi-

cant impact on where and how we

choose to live and where and how we

choose to work, and it seems that the

race for space is not over just yet.”

T

wo brothers

spent 24 hours

battered by

high winds on

a platform

suspended from a 115ft

cliff in Pembrokeshire to

raise money for charity

(Peter Chappell writes).

Daniel MacDiarmid,

13, and his brother

Calvin, 18, said they

were buffeted by 50mph

winds and “didn’t get a

wink of sleep” during

the challenge at St

Davids.

The brothers have

raised nearly £4,000 so

far for Christmas

presents for children at

the Chestnut Tree

House hospice near

Arundel, West Sussex.

Daniel, a pupil at Lewes

Old Grammar School in

East Sussex, began a

series of

fundraising

efforts after he

was in hospital

for a toe

operation. Over

the years he has

raised more than

£10,000 for

charity. “I saw a lot of

really poorly children

and I thought about how

I could help,” Daniel

said.

His previous efforts

have included abseiling

off a bridge, soaring

down a zipwire, riding

50 miles in just over five

hours and performing

BMX stunts. The

inspiration for his latest

effort came when he saw

Jack Whitehall, the

actor and comedian,

attempt cliff camping on

TV.

Daniel, known as

Shrimpy, said: “It was

very cold with

temperatures near

freezing. Me and my

brother were wrapped

up but were being

buffeted by 50mph gusts

of wind. It was pretty

scary. It was dark and

noisy and we didn’t get a

wink of sleep.”

His father, also

Daniel, said: “Round

about 4am they were

both so scared they

almost called a halt.

Daniel called me on the

mobile and we had a

talk. He thought about

the presents he would be

able to buy for the

children if they

completed the challenge

and they knuckled

down.

“When it got light

everything felt much

more positive. They

were able to push on

through and complete

the challenge. We are so

proud of therm both.

Daniel just keeps on

coming up with new

ways to raise money.”

In 2015, Daniel and

Calvin jumped a gap on

their bikes, a fundraising

effort that ended in

Calvin breaking his

front teeth and injuring

his arm.

Martin Styring, of

Chestnut Tree House,

said: “Daniel’s kindness

and ongoing support for

the children we care for

is inspiring.”

A Just Giving page has

been set up for

donations.

Charity

challenge

is a real

cliffhanger

The MacDiarmid

brothers were

buffetted by

high winds 115ft

in the air