Mansion Tax from 2028: How Many Homes Are Above £2m in Your Area?

From April 2028, owners of homes in England worth £2m or more will pay an annual charge on top of their council tax. The government calls it the High Value Council Tax Surcharge. Everyone else calls it the mansion tax.

The charge starts at £2,500 a year and rises to £7,500 for homes valued above £5m. It was announced in the November 2025 Budget and consulted on over the summer. The Autumn Budget 2026 on Wednesday 28 October kept the threshold at £2m and confirmed how the charge will work.

For agents in prime and upper-suburban patches, the practical question is local. How many homes in your outcodes sit above the line, how many sit just below it, and what does that mean for instructions between now and 2028?

What is the mansion tax and when does it start?

It is a new annual charge on owners of residential property in England valued at £2m or more, starting in April 2028. It sits alongside council tax and is collected by councils on the same billing cycle, with the first bills due in March 2028.

The charge is set in four bands. The Valuation Office Agency (VOA), part of HMRC, will place each home in a band using its value at the April 2026 valuation date.

Band (VOA value)	Annual charge
£2m to £2.5m	£2,500
£2.5m to £3.5m	£3,500
£3.5m to £5m	£5,000
Over £5m	£7,500

The charges rise with CPI each year from 2029/30. Revaluation is planned every five years, with the next in 2033.

Four details confirmed in the government's consultation response, published with the Budget on 28 October 2026, matter most for agents:

• Owners pay. The legal owner is liable. That includes a company that owns the home, and a leaseholder where the lease was first granted for more than 21 years. A tenant in a £3m home does not pay it.

• The value is the VOA's. The VOA will use comparable sales and property details such as type, age and number of rooms. A model gives an initial value, and a valuer's judgement sets the band. The asking price, the agent's appraisal and the last sale price do not set the band.

• Draft bands come first. Owners will be able to see their draft band in autumn 2027. They can challenge a banding decision, or whether they are liable at all, and appeal to the Valuation Tribunal for England if the challenge is not resolved.

• Some owners can defer. Households with income of £35,000 or less, savings of £16,000 or less, or a member who meets disability criteria can defer the charge until ownership changes. Interest is added at what the government calls a "fair rate", which has not yet been set.

The consultation ran from 19 May to 14 July 2026. The government published its response on 28 October 2026, alongside the Budget.

The surcharge applies in England only. Homes in Wales and Scotland are outside it. Some properties are exempt, such as purpose-built student halls and care homes, and others, such as registered social housing and farmhouses on working farms, can get a discount. Homes left substantially unfurnished and unoccupied for 12 months or more pay a 100% premium on top of the charge.

What did the Autumn Budget 2026 confirm?

It kept the threshold at £2m. The Budget documents and the government's consultation response, both published on 28 October 2026, confirm a charge on owners of homes in England worth £2m or more in 2026, starting in April 2028, with the four bands and charges unchanged. The government estimates it will raise around £400m a year from 2028/29.

As of 29 October 2026, the timetable is set. Owners will be able to see their draft band in autumn 2027, councils will send the first bills in March 2028 and the charge applies from April 2028. Charges rise with CPI from 2029/30, and homes are revalued every five years from 2033. The government will legislate in Finance Bill 2026-27.

Estimates of how many homes pay vary with the method. The Office for Budget Responsibility's costing puts around 165,000 properties in scope in 2028-29 before behavioural effects. Tax Policy Associates, as reported by MoneyWeek in July 2026, estimated around 127,000 households would pay at £2m.

How many homes are above £2m in your area?

Propalt estimates there are more than 4,000 homes valued at £2m or more in each of Chelsea (SW3), South Kensington (SW7), Kensington (W8), Hampstead (NW3) and Fulham (SW6). Outside London, Beaconsfield (HP9), Cobham (KT11), Harpenden (AL5), Ascot and Sunningdale (SL5) and Esher (KT10) each have more than 1,000.

These are Propalt estimates based on Propalt's automated valuation model (AVM), counted for main residential property types that have a Propalt valuation, outcode by outcode. Propalt counts by outcode, not by region or for England as a whole, so the table shows selected outcodes rather than a national total. They are not VOA values, and the VOA's draft bands in autumn 2027 will differ.

Homes valued at £2m or more, selected outcodes (Propalt estimate, October 2026)

Outcode	Area	Homes £2m+	Share of homes with a Propalt valuation in the outcode
NW3	Hampstead	5,105	18.9%
SW3	Chelsea	4,642	31.6%
W8	Kensington	4,546	38.9%
SW6	Fulham	4,393	12.1%
SW7	South Kensington	4,351	34.9%
SW1X	Belgravia and Knightsbridge	3,672	70.6%
W11	Notting Hill	3,159	19.1%
NW8	St John's Wood	2,864	15.8%
SW10	Chelsea and West Brompton	1,787	16.9%
HP9	Beaconsfield	1,315	17.2%
KT11	Cobham	1,250	18.7%
AL5	Harpenden	1,230	9.6%
SL5	Ascot and Sunningdale	1,185	10.3%
KT10	Esher	1,172	13.1%
OX2	North Oxford	1,056	5.4%
GU25	Virginia Water	694	25.8%
WA15	Hale and Altrincham	458	2.6%
SK9	Wilmslow and Alderley Edge	382	2.0%

The band mix varies by patch. In SW3, Propalt's AVM places 722 homes in the £2m to £2.5m band, 1,339 in £2.5m to £3.5m, 1,649 in £3.5m to £5m and 932 above £5m. In KT11 the mix is weighted to the bottom: 520, 513, 185 and 32.

The edge of the threshold matters as much as the count above it. Propalt's AVM puts 464 homes in SW3 and 295 in KT11 between £1.8m and £2m. On those figures, a modest difference between Propalt's estimate and the VOA's 2026 value decides whether a home pays £2,500 a year or nothing.

Homes within £200,000 of the £2m line are the instructions where the band question comes up at the valuation.

What does the mansion tax mean for high-value instructions?

It gives vendors near and above the threshold a new cost to weigh, and it gives agents a new question to answer at the valuation. Nobody yet knows what it will do to prices or listing volumes, and agents should present any view on that as a forecast.

Selling ahead of 2028. The charge falls on whoever owns the home from April 2028. Some owners who were already thinking of downsizing may choose to sell before then so they never receive a bill. Selling does not take the home out of scope: the band is based on the VOA's 2026 value, so the buyer inherits it. Whether this brings more stock to market in 2027 is unknown. Watch your own withdrawn and new instruction counts rather than relying on national commentary.

For a baseline, Propalt's market data for July to September 2026 records 95 homes withdrawn from the market in Chelsea (SW3) and 39 in Cobham (KT11). For the reasons owners decide to move when they do, see why understanding vendor behaviour is crucial for estate agents, and for the downsizing conversation itself, the downsizer opportunity.

Pricing around band edges. Buyers will factor a £2,500 to £7,500 annual charge into what they offer. The OBR's costing assumes some price "bunching" below band thresholds and some of the charge being reflected in lower prices. Those are modelling assumptions, and no one has observed them in a real market yet. The band follows the VOA's 2026 value, informed by comparable 2026 sales, so an agreed price of £1.95m does not by itself keep a home out of scope.

Comparable 2026 sales are also the evidence the VOA will lean on, so the sales you use to price a home are the same ones that matter for its band. Our guide to property comparables covers how to choose and present them to a vendor.

Advising vendors on what is fixed. The consultation says a band will not normally change to reflect improvements alone until the home is sold, split or merged, or at a revaluation. Vendors planning works before a sale should know that the sale itself may be the point the VOA looks again.

Talking to owners now. Owners will see their draft bands in autumn 2027. Between now and then, owners near the threshold will want a view on where they sit. An agent who can show local evidence, without promising a band, has a reason to be in the room. If you are planning letters to that group, the structure in our guide to estate agent lead generation and the neighbour approach in how to create a 20:20 direct mail campaign both apply.

What should agents do next?

Work from the rules the government confirmed at the Budget on 28 October 2026.

1. Count your patch at the threshold. Know how many homes in your outcodes sit above it and how many sit within £200,000 below it.

2. List live instructions near the line. Any home on the market within a few hundred thousand pounds of the threshold or a band edge may need a conversation.

3. Prepare a factual vendor note. Bands, charges, the April 2028 start, the April 2026 valuation date and the autumn 2027 draft bands. Avoid predicting prices.

4. Know who can defer or challenge. Households on income of £35,000 or less, savings of £16,000 or less, or with a member who meets disability criteria can defer, and any owner can challenge their band. Point vendors to the government guidance rather than judging eligibility yourself.

In Propalt, Location Analysis maps residential properties in your patch with an instant valuation, which gives you the count for step 1 outcode by outcode. For step 2, the list can be short: on 26 October 2026, Propalt's sales data showed 5 homes advertised for sale on Rightmove and Zoopla (deduplicated by property) in Cobham (KT11) at asking prices between £1.8m and £2.2m, either side of the current £2m threshold.

For step 3, our market appraisal template shows how to lay out that evidence alongside your vendor note.

📌 KEY TAKEAWAY

The mansion tax starts in April 2028 for homes in England, with the band set by the VOA's 2026 value and charges from £2,500 a year. Propalt's AVM puts thousands of homes above £2m in each prime London outcode and more than 1,000 in commuter outcodes such as Cobham, Esher and Beaconsfield, with hundreds more just below the line. With the £2m threshold confirmed at the Budget, the agents who know exactly which homes in their patch sit near the line will have the better vendor conversations, and Location Analysis shows an instant valuation for residential properties in your patch.

SOURCES & DATA REFERENCES

1. HM Treasury, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and HM Revenue & Customs (28 October 2026). 'High Value Council Tax Surcharge: Summary of Responses and government response.' Supports the £2m threshold for homes in England, first bills from March 2028, draft list in autumn 2027, liability of legal owners, companies and leaseholders on leases first granted for more than 21 years, the deferral criteria, exemptions and discounts, the 100% premium on homes substantially unfurnished and unoccupied for 12 months or more, and appeals to the Valuation Tribunal. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6ae0e337779378370fd80a85/HVCTS_Summary_of_Responses.pdf

2. HM Treasury (first published 26 November 2025, updated 28 October 2026). 'High Value Council Tax Surcharge' (factsheet). Supports the bands and charges, April 2028 start, March 2028 first bills, April 2026 valuation date, draft bands in autumn 2027, CPI uprating from 2029-30, revaluation every five years from 2033, deferral criteria and "fair rate" of interest, examples of exemptions and discounts, the 100% premium, challenges and appeals, around £400m a year from 2028/29, and legislation in Finance Bill 2026-27. gov.uk/government/publications/high-value-council-tax-surcharge/high-value-council-tax-surcharge

3. HM Revenue & Customs (28 October 2026). 'Budget 2026: Overview of tax legislation and rates (OOTLAR).' Paragraph 1.22 supports an additional charge on residential properties worth £2m or more from April 2028, to be legislated in Finance Bill 2026-27. gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2026-overview-of-tax-legislation-and-rates-ootlar

4. Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (19 May 2026). 'High Value Council Tax Surcharge' (consultation, ran 19 May to 14 July 2026). Supports bands and charges, April 2028 start, March 2028 first bills, owner liability, VOA valuation using 2026 values, draft list in late 2027, exemptions, deferral proposals, band changes on sale, revaluation in 2033. gov.uk/government/consultations/high-value-council-tax-surcharge

5. GOV.UK (19 May 2026). 'Fairer taxes for high-value homes.' Supports £2m threshold for homes in England, start from April 2028, fewer than 1% of properties affected. gov.uk/government/news/fairer-taxes-for-high-value-homes

6. HM Treasury (26 November 2025). 'Budget 2025.' Supports the announcement in the November 2025 Budget, £2m threshold, charges from £2,500 to £7,500, owners rather than occupiers. gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2025-document

7. Deloitte Taxscape (2025). 'High Value Council Tax Surcharge.' Supports CPI uprating of charges from 2029/30. taxscape.deloitte.com/measures-autumn-budget-2025/high-value-council-tax-surcharge.aspx

8. Office for Budget Responsibility (2 April 2026). 'Supplementary forecast information: high value council tax surcharge costing.' Supports around 165,000 properties in scope in 2028-29 before behaviour, and modelling assumptions on price capitalisation and bunching below band thresholds. obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/Supplementary-forecast-information-high-value-council-tax-surcharge-costing.pdf

9. MoneyWeek (8 July 2026). 'Could you be dragged into paying mansion tax as Burnham moots lower threshold?' Supports Tax Policy Associates estimate of around 127,000 households at £2m. moneyweek.com/investments/property

10. RossMartin (3 August 2026). 'Date announced for Budget 2026.' Supports the Budget date of Wednesday 28 October 2026. rossmartin.co.uk/sme-tax-news

11. Propalt (October 2026). Property search by outcode: counts of main residential property types that have a Propalt valuation, by Propalt AVM value (£1.8m to £2m, £2m and above, and by surcharge band) for outcodes SW3, SW7, W8, NW3, W11, SW1X, SW10, NW8, SW6, KT11, GU25, SL5, HP9, KT10, WA15, SK9, AL5 and OX2, pulled 26 October 2026. Propalt AVM is Propalt's own automated valuation, not a VOA or surveyor value. propalt.co.uk

12. Propalt (October 2026). Quarterly market statistics for SW3 and KT11, July to September 2026 (2026 Q3): withdrawals from the sales market, 95 in SW3 and 39 in KT11. Propalt platform data, pulled 26 October 2026.

13. Propalt (October 2026). Sales market activity, KT11 (Cobham), homes advertised for sale on Rightmove and Zoopla (deduplicated by property) at asking prices of £1.8m to £2.2m on 26 October 2026: 5. Propalt platform data.