'Mansion tax' - what if you just can't pay it?

[shellinthesea]

My elderly mum lives in a London house worth about 2million. She's been there for over 50 years, and is physically and mentally fragile. There is no way she would EVER want to move, the house and her neighbours are her whole world. She has no spare money - at all. (Neither do I, before anyone suggests this!) How is she supposed to manage this? It's not exactly her fault that the value of the property increased so much since my parents bought it all that time ago.

I also have a friend, also in London. Both parents sadly died in an accident about 15 years ago, and she used her inheritance to buy a family home which has also increased massively in value. It's probably also worth over 2 million now! She's a single mum on a lower income with 3 kids who very happy at their local school and within their community - what's she supposed to do?

It's just not as simple as 'you live in a high-value house, you can obviously afford to pay several grand a year' as RR seems to think. And for anyone who is about to say 'oh tiny violin, their houses are worth two million' - both of these situations are complicated and quite sad in many ways. Neither my mum nor my friend can simply just sell up and move...anyone have any thoughts on this?

Its happening already. And its very detrimental to areas like the NE where house prices are going up due to retired pensioners from the south living off their equity and pushing out poor young people who dont have the benefits of a southern salary.

Doesn't really look like a mansion to me

This is a kind of ‘ wealth tax’ isn’t it. The government are penalizing people for high home prices that have been allowed to escalate over the years and priced a lot of people out of home owning.
However, as per my post below, care homes are not cheap and many share holders are probably rubbing their hands together at the fact we have an aging population and all living longer.
Plus those who do manage to stay out of care homes , their children or grandchildren will benefit from the inheritance they receive, I know a few people who have thousands in the bank from property purchased by family years ago and now living it up with holidays and camper caravans and new cars. For some, it’s not all bad news!

wow, that is insane. whereabout do you live?

Our CT is less than that and our house is prob "worth" 900k (Greater London)

Any situation where a very elderly person needs to be moved has my sympathy. But these two people do have more options open to them than the vast majority of people, so they are far more fortunate than most.

Quite how the NHS is skint when it’s the 7th largest employer in the world (as of 2022) is something of a mystery to me. It doesn’t work in its current state and we need to look at other options, rather than whacking taxes up again and again.

There is so much waste in government, if you look at the government website you can see all sorts of contracts for huge amounts of money going overseas, how much of this could be cut? Look at how much HS2 has cost so far, and ho little seems to have been achieved. It’s about time there was more investigation into how government spends tax payers’ money, rather than just defaulting to taking ever increasing amounts of our hard earned cash.

I agree. Just like the council tax re-evaluation proposals. Not a hope of being able to undertake that. That will also be shelved once they've gone.

Is it really as cheap ‘ up north’ though. Presumably they will want to move to more desirable/ leafy places and that won’t necessarily come cheap !

Why should they?

Why should they, for elderly person that stress could prove too be too much

@Thechaseison71 Mate - it is in Kingsway - bangslap in the centre of London. You won't find many poor grannies accidentally living in a luxury flat conversion in Kingsway.

Tenants pay council tax, not landlords (unless HMOs in which case they are often students who are exempt)

Also it doesn't matter if it is a studio of a 30 bed mansion, it is a property worth £2m or more, so in scope. This tax is on value, not size. No one needs to live in Holborn, it is a choice and an expensive one.

Cue people moaning "it's a death tax" and they have been working all their lives etc.

Do you not realize there a bloody great amount of council housing in Holborn? It's not that elite you know

The OP literally typed out in clear plain English the answer to this silly question.

Besides, who will be buying all these two million pound houses?

Absolutely, it's one of the reasons we need more money for the NHS, so there aren't gaps in the rota like this

Has that cheered you up love?

@Thechaseison71 yes I do (i used to walk though a council estate just behind High Holborn the way to a kickboxing class) but the important difference is those council flats generally won't be worth £2M +

The silly comments are those saying it can't be done. They don't WANT to. There's a difference. Can't/won't. No reason has been given for them being unable to sell and move.

Because they can't afford to stay there anymore 🤔 the same as what happens in many, many situations. And without the £2m cushion as support.

If my mum was broke living in a house worth more than £2m I would be helping her to downsize, stay in the area so that she had some £££. What’s the point in rattling around some giant house on your own with no money?
To protect your inheritance Insuppose ?

What about my second sentence? Who is going to be buying these two million pound houses to enable them to sell up and move on?

What does she do when it needs works or repairs?

I'm assuming your friends don't have a mortgage; if 2k is going to kick them over the edge, perhaps it is time to sell up.

That's my harsh comment. I can see your point of view, but I can also see the other side. Thousands of people in houses worth 200-250k paying more council tax than someone in a 3 million quid house doesn't seem right.