This Year’s Top 10 Most Expensive UK Properties

NEWS COPY – WITH PICTURES – by Adrian Hearn

Estate agents were counting the profits last year after a record-breaking 13,400 properties sold for more than £1 million - with a £50 million penthouse topping the list of biggest sales.

A strengthening economy saw house prices in London shoot up by 16.3 per cent, which helped boost the number of million pound-plus deals by a fifth.

However, industry experts fear 2015 will see a significant downturn in the high end market owing to tax hikes and political uncertainty.

The biggest purchase of 2014 was a luxury apartment on Princes Gate, Knightsbridge, which was sold in July for £50 million - netting the Treasury £3.5 million in stamp duty fees in the process.

And with the average house price in England and Wales costing £177,000, the tax alone on this single sale could have paid for around 20 ‘average’ homes.

The second most expensive sale of the year was for an apartment in Chesham Place, which was sold to a Glencore mining tycoon for £46 million.

This is according to a series of extraordinary figures released by the Land Registry last week, which showed there were 13,428 properties selling last year for more than £1 million.

It is an increase of 21 per cent over the 11,084 in 2013 and almost three times as many as in 2009.

By comparison, there were just 185 seven-figure deals in 1995, the earliest year for Land Registry figures.

Greater London, unsurprisingly, helped drive the million-pound market with 66 per cent of deals taking place in the capital. The capital made up 96 of the top 100 sales.

This was thanks to properties like Jersey House on The Bishops Avenue, in Hampstead, which sold for £33.7 million to be the third biggest sale of 2014.

Making up the top five sales were a £27.9 million house on Thornwood Gardens in Kensington and another flat on Princes Gate, which sold for £26.5 million.

There were 97 properties sold for £10 million or more and, of these, 13 topped £20 million.

In the £1 million, £5 million, £10 million, £15 million and £20 million-plus brackets, 2014 beat every year in Land Registry history.

Property prices increased more in London than anywhere else over in England and Wales.

Over a 12-month period, the average value of a home in the capital shot up by 16.3 per cent against a national average of 7 per cent. The average home in the capital now sells for £464,000.

Prices in the South-East are up 10.8 per cent while values in the East increased by 10.3 per cent.

However, 2015 is unlikely to match 2014′s mega sales and some industry experts suspect the market has now peaked.

Foxtons, the London estate agency has been hit hard in recent months. After floating late in 2013, its share price shot up by 20 per cent.

But a year on and turnover had dropped 12.1 per cent for the final quarter of 2014 with commission on sales down by a quarter.

A number of estate agents claim the market has been hit by stamp duty hikes and they fear a possible mansion tax and the looming election are making things worse.

Under the new stamp duty changes, the buyers of the top ten biggest sales would have paid £35 million - an increase of £15 million.

Trevor Abrahmsohn, boss of Glentree Estates in North London, said the Government had “put a noose around the golden goose’s neck”.

He said: “The market has turned significantly. It is now a very different story. If you have a #2 million house and want to buy a £4 million house you now have to pay £450,000 in moving fees.

“This isn’t mortgageable and when you move you may have to pay a £40,000 a year mansion tax. If you have borrowed a lot then you are paying tax on debt.

“People who own a house worth just under £2 million won’t want to pay mansion tax so they won’t want to extend or carry out improvements for fear of entering the mansion tax band.

“Those who really want to buy will buy, but those who are unsure will be stuck in the headlights because of uncertainty and increased taxes.

“This will result in stamp duty receipts dropping. Stamp duty has raise a lot of money, but the increase is like putting a noose around the neck of the golden goose.

“I know a group of 20 wealth creators and ten are planning their next move. Monaco, Dubai, Geneva. It is not good for investment in the UK.”

This Year’s Top 10 Most Expensive UK Properties