Mansion tax, shmansion tax: This £24m Notting Hill home sold just before the General Election
Property types may have been worried about the looming spectre of a mansion tax during the run-up to the General Election – but that concern clearly didn't stretch to one billionaire buyer, who forked out £24m on a house in Notting Hill.
An "unmodernised" end-of-terrace home on Kensington Park Gardens, which comes complete with eight bedrooms and bathrooms, four reception rooms, two dressing rooms, four cloakrooms, a staff flat, a swimming pool, a linen room – and even the ultimate London luxury, off-street parking – sold a few weeks before the election.
The 11,660 sq ft home will have cost the buyer just shy of £2.8m in stamp duty, said estate agent Marsh & Parsons, which sold the house, which added that it was a positive sign for the prime central London market.
The view from the top: the buyer also gets access to private garden Ladbroke Square (Source: Marsh & Parsons)
"Buyers are learning to live with the new higher stamp duty costs above £937,000," said Keith Gorny, the director of Marsh & Parsons Prime Sales. "Prime London property continues to be a highly sought-after asset."
And it looks like the end of uncertainty over mansion tax – both Labour and the Liberal Democrats had threatened an annual tax on homes worth more than £2m – has paid off for London's prime residential property market. Figures earlier this week by estate agent comparison site Getagent.co.uk found the number of properties worth £2m plus listed on it have doubled since the election.
"For the first time in a while we've got serious interest, people talking about offering more viewings," Nick Davies, from agent Stirling Ackroyd, told City A.M.