Reeves' plan to tax houses over 500k

[FridayFeelingmidweek]

Just been reading news about Reeves's plan to tax https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/aug/18/rachel-reeves-stamp-duty-property-tax-council-tax

AIBU to already be worrying about living in the south east? Surely this will force people either to never move, or move away from SE/London.

I'm glad that there is finally something that isn't negatively affecting areas outside the SE but does she actually understand that 500k isn't much down here - 3 bed terrace at best.

Agree and they’d get rid of stamp duty

Exactly

I think it would need to be applied regionally based on the increase over the average market price.

I'm in the North West and consider myself to be wealthy. I couldn't afford a £500k home (mine is worth about £380-400k.

I'd consider a family in a £500k home to be rich.

Equity is money for free though isnt it? Aka wealth development. So whether you're a FTB or whether you've gained money for free (untaxed) on your previous property, you still need to be fairly well off and doing ok to buy a property of that price. Its a fact, I dont know why you're so resistant to it

It doesnt need to be an affluent area either. We live in the SE, we live in a really cheap part of our town, but the town itself has some very expensive properties. Its still one of the top deprived areas in the whole of Europe. Unfortunately.

We bought our house (Yorkshire) over 20 years ago for £150k, that was less than 3 times joint salary at the time
Now its worth £550K, we don't earn £180k so while we have a house worth a reasonable amount we couldn't afford to buy it now with a mortgage

So he is one of the lucky ones who can afford to do this. Any fiscal policy is going to have implicit loopholes benefitting a few. I stand by my belief that not many families will find it sensible to pay average fees of £1200 per week out of pocket whilst holding on to a parent’s house.

> AIBU to already be worrying about living in the south east? Surely this will force people either to never move, or move away from SE/London.

That has been Labour's plan since the days of Blair

I wouldnt call that a loophole as such.

Its simple money management. You need to pay care home fees and the client has cash. So you use the cash. Why wouldnt you.

You would only sell the property if and when the cash dries up. Your asset is worth more sitting there than money in the bank (usually)

I wont be making payments for my parents for care home fees as I wouldnt be able to afford it. Once any cash dries up, the house would have to be sold and what is paid in IHT, is paid in IHT, if I lose it I lose it. Hope my sibling agrees! If not they can pay the monthly fees!

The article states it would take a second term of Labour to work through

Well as that's not happening it won't ever be enacted

Well that not going to happen then!

Council tax bands are not based on property values, father rentable values (it's an archaic tax that assumes only the wealthy landlord class own property, needs to be completely scrapped and a new one created)

Obviously a five-bed property rents for more than a four-bed or a bungalow

And also I missed that bit that its only due on profit. Well thats not going to bring in much is it

The reality is, we have a low tax economy overall, we need more people paying in. A lot of us have benefited from 'free money' on house price inflation, its not unethical to consider whether that should be taxed, I like the CGT suggestion earlier on.

But no one wants to consider it should apply to them. Everyone wants someone else to pay, better services for less money. They want public services run like private businesses and then they wonder why the country has gone to shit. If we want America, then we'll get America and good luck to you who think you can cope under such an economy. I know I wouldnt. I need the NHS, I need education for the grandchildren. I need community resources and safety on the streets.

I said ‘implicit loophole’ because I agree with you. Admittedly it is not a perfect phrase.

I meant that the neighbour quoted is able to do something HMG would pretty clearly rather he didn’t. Yet legislating against it would be ridiculous, and likely to be challenged in court.

Brexit did not affect the whole world, it just pointlessly damaged the UK. Admittedly, it adversely affected many of our fellow European countries as it made trade more difficult but it mostly just affected the UK by making it more isolated, less relevant to Europe and made the UK reliant on immigration from all around the world. It was just a stupid thing to do as the only result was only going to be harmful to the UK.

“assumes only the wealthy landlord class own property”

if it wasn’t for the IHt and wealth tax people profess to hate paying this would still be the case

Fairly well off and doing ok is not the same as wealthy, you are clearly against anyone who has worked their ass off over the years to have a nice home, I stand by my comment

Oh Im against myself now!

How funny.

I have consistently used the phrase well off. You used the words wealthy to refer to the 500k property.

If this tax has been introduced sooner, we likely would’ve limited the property inflation that has led to this inequality.

my parents bought a house for £28k and sold it 31 years later for £475k.

cab you really justify that untaxed wealth/ income? They didn’t work hard, all they did was work the same as anyone else does, bought a house and paid off a mortgage. What’s so outstanding about that?

The average salary is something like £35k.

For an adult aged 40-49 the average salary is £42k.

So to have a household income of c. £80k is really very average, rather than wealthy.

It’s a tough call. But houses where I live, you can guess, have gone from just affordable 15 years ago to almost 2-3 x the price. So those of us been here a while would mostly find it v difficult

£28350 in Scotland

There are a lot of homes over £500k in the SE and they are not mansions, many ordinary semidetached terraced 2-3 bedroom family houses, some ex council, and the people living in them aren’t especially well off, the just bought them a few years ago when they could afford them (I’m talking mid 2000’s, not back in the 80’s). These people have normal jobs and aren’t that well off, the SE isn’t brimming exclusively with millionaires.

Labour are more incompetent that I could ever had imagined. They are a government without any ideas and a bunch of lefty’s trying to enact socialist policies.