Angela Rayner dodging 40k stamp duty

[LupaMoonhowl]

Yet a different version of which of the three is her main residence…How many ‘working’ people are is a position to flip to dodge the taxes that pay for public services?

Angela Rayner saved £40,000 in stamp duty on her new seaside flat after telling tax authorities it was her main home, The Telegraph can disclose.
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The Deputy Prime Minister is understood to have removed her name from the deeds of her house in Greater Manchester a few weeks before buying an £800,000 seaside flat in Hove, East Sussex.
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The changes enabled Ms Rayner to avoid paying £70,000 stamp duty, which would have been applicable if Hove was her second home. Instead she is thought to have paid £30,000 stamp duty, saving her £40,000 in the process.
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But she has also told Tameside council in Manchester that her constituency house remains her primary residence and informed Brighton and Hove council that her apartment there was a second home for council tax purposes.
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Although the changes are entirely legal, the arrangements will raise questions over whether she has deliberately conducted her property affairs to pay less stamp duty and council tax.
A surcharge on stamp duty for second home owners was introduced by the previous Tory government in 2016, the rate of which was raised by Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, last October in a move designed to target the wealthy and boost revenue for the Treasury.
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/28/angela-rayner-dodges-40000-stamp-duty/

I think whether this is a story or not hinges on why she signed the property over to her husband before she bought the flat in Hove (which is how she avoided paying additional rate SDLT). They are getting divorced (it's been reported), so if he has effectively bought her out of the family home (and she's gone and bought a flat in hove) then she shouldn't pay additional rate SDLT because she's not buying an additional property.

If true, it’s just so tawdry. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. I hope she goes, and I actually liked her.

No real surprise I’d say.

What's she's done is apparently legal, but it shouldn't be.

Back in the days of the MPs expenses scandal plenty of MPs were flip flopping their houses, the loophole should have been closed decades ago, but I guess no MP is going to vote for a change they benefit from.

As for Angles Rayner, the 'do what I say, not what I do' look is terrible for any politician, but for a socialist it positively stinks of hypocrisy.

Seems awful.

She will have received a payout for transferring house to the husband as part of divorce

if she had gifted him her share of the house and come off the deeds then there would be a stamp duty consequence

But she’s also nominated the Manchester house as her primary residence and told Brighton council the Hove flat is her second home

Does she benefit from that though? I would have thought she might pay extra CT in hove (as it's a second home), although I don't know. We have a second home in a different area and we pay extra because we don't live there.

Manchester might be her 'main home' in the sense that she currently lives there to be with the kids but her husband may legitimately own it as part of the divorce settlement.

Just a politician behaving like a politician…they’re all cut from the same cloth whatever colour flag they fly!

As she has transferred the house to her ex I don’t understand why she has it as primary residence for council tax and doesn’t just say she doesn’t live there

so Brighton is primary residence and London flat is second with us taxpayers paying the council tax anyway

Like PP, my guess is that as part of her divorce, her husband has bought her out of the family home and she’s bought a new flat in Hove which is fair enough. That doesn’t explain why she’s playing silly buggers with her declarations for council tax. I’m sure she has plenty of advisors so it looks like the whole thing has been concocted so she pays the bare minimum she can get away with. It’s a terrible look.

Well I would give the benefit of doubt that this is part of the divorce. However Rayner has always been very creative with the legal implications of her relationship status when it comes to houses.

What a chancer. It doesn't surprise me in the least. They won't be getting my vote again.

Looks like she won’t get in next time given the breakdown of the voting last time when Reform were the new kids on the block and the Conservatives still had some residual support.

I'll need more than a story in the Telegraph before I reach a decision on the question.

The days when the Telegraph was a newspaper of record are long gone. Broadsheet Daily Mail these days and every bit as trustworthy.

A bit like Rayner.

They're all the same. Snouts in the trough 🐷

She's in the middle of a divorce. The husband got the house. Big non story

How does that explain the council tax situation then?

That’s what I think. She’s no better or worse than other politicians.

My husband thinks she should resign over it and he’s a staunch Labour supporter. But I don’t think so as it’s legal, just not very moral. Very bad optics either way.

Well I can’t stand her so to me it’s just the kind of thing I would expect her to do.

I read elsewhere that she may be going to grab the Brighton seat in the next election when Labour are booted out of her current constituency by Reform.

Yes I read that too. It’s a safer seat for Labour apparently.

Paying for things is for everyone else to do, not poor old mps on their ikkle salaries. I am consistently sickened by people purporting to have morals and ethics, insisting other middle and high earners pay tax like it’s a moral duty to the country, and then avoiding every penny of it they can when it’s their own money. Arseholes. And I’m a Labour supporter so it breaks my heart every time they do this. It’s not even that much money in the grand scheme of things.

The Telegraph; a comic in broad sheet form.

If only Levinson 2 had been enforced, then baseless accusations would have to be declared in the same manner in which they were published, rather than a tiny mention tucked away on page 43. The Telegraph is shamefully notorious for this.

This story is on par with the ‘survey’ about millionaires leaving the UK in droves - a survey conducted BEFORE the current labour government even came into power.

I am not a labour voter. However even I cannot stomach the lies and misinformation from some sections of the media. It is disgraceful and dangerous. Where was this level of scrutiny when the previous government was tendering lucrative contracts to their mates. Where was the scrutiny whilst Matt Hancock was having an affair; Johnson was having sponsored redecorations at his home, appointing a 29 year old as a life peer in the House of Lords, and writing a book whilst Covid was taking hold of the country.

The hypocrisy is staggering.