According to Housesimple, the exclusive £20m Plus Club includes properties ranging from a country house in Ascot, in 70 acres of land, to a 4-bed flat in Knightsbridge, Central London. Only one property at £20m or above is located outside the capital.
With stamp duty changes hitting the super prime end of the market, stamp duty alone on a £20m property would be an eye-watering £2,313,750; while the total stamp duty bill across all 21 properties in the £20m Plus Club would be a staggering £72,228,150.
The most expensive property on the UK market at the moment is a 6-bed terraced house in Belgravia, with an asking price of £62,500,000. A buyer would have to pay stamp duty of almost £7.5m on this property alone. That’s the equivalent of the total stamp duty bill on 4,038 properties being marketed at £217,888, the average UK house price. At £10m and over, there are 107 properties currently for sale in the UK with a combined value of almost £1.7bn.
Four out of ten (40%) of these properties are located in just three UK postcodes – SW1, SW7 and W1 – all Central London postcodes. These postcodes cover Belgravia, Knightsbridge and Mayfair, three areas which have become synonymous with super expensive properties selling for tens of millions of pounds.
The following table shows the ten most expensive properties currently for sale in the UK and the stamp duty a buyer would have to pay on purchase:
Town/City |
Area |
Postcode |
Property |
Price (£) |
Stamp duty to be paid |
London |
Belgrave Square, Belgravia |
SW1 |
6 bed terraced house |
62,500,000 |
7,413,750 |
London |
Mayfair |
W1 |
8 bed terraced house |
60,000,000 |
7,113,750 |
London |
Wellington Court, Knightsbridge |
SW1 |
6 bed penthouse |
35,000,000 |
4,113,750 |
London |
Porchester Gate, Bayswater Road |
W2 |
End terrace house |
35,000,000 |
4,113,750 |
Ascot |
Berkshire |
SL5 |
10 bed country house |
30,000,000 |
3,513,750 |
London |
The Bishops Avenue |
N2 |
8 bed detached house |
30,000,000 |
3,513,750 |
London |
Berkeley Square |
W1 |
8 bed detached house |
30,000,000 |
3,513,750 |
London |
Knightsbridge |
SW7 |
6 bed terraced house |
27,500,000 |
3,213,750 |
London |
Hamilton Terrace |
NW8 |
7 bed detached house |
27,000,000 |
3,153,750 |
London |
Academy Gardens |
W8 |
5 bed flat |
26,000,000 |
3,033,750 |
According to HouseSimple figures, members of the £20m Plus Club could save at least £430,000 in estate agent fees if they sold their property through an online estate agent. If all 21 properties on the market at £20m and above were sold online, the collective saving on fees would be more than £13m.
Alex Gosling, CEO of online estate agents, Housesimple, had this to say: “The super prime market has suffered since the stamp duty changes, but that doesn’t mean it’s dead in the water. When you have £20m plus to spend, you’re unlikely to baulk at paying a few million pounds in stamp duty. And there are buyers out there still willing to pay premium prices to live in the most exclusive areas.
So what does £20m get you? Outside London you can probably pick up a country estate. In London, with the price per square footage so high in areas like Knightsbridge and Belgravia, you might have to lower your expectations. It’s staggering that a quarter of the most expensive properties on the UK market right now are flats. It just shows how crazy the property market is in the capital when £20m doesn’t even buy you a house!”