Angela Rayner dodges £40,000 stamp duty

Deputy Prime Minister reduces tax bill for Hove flat by declaring it as her main residence

28 August 2025 10:39pm BST

Daily Telegraph 

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Angel 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.

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.

The changes enabled Ms Rayner to avoid paying £70,000 in stamp duty, which would have been applicable if Hove was her second home. Instead, she is thought to have paid £30,000 in stamp duty, saving her £40,000 in the process.

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.

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 current Chancellor, last October in a move designed to target the wealthy and boost revenue for the Treasury.

At the weekend, sources close to Ms Rayner insisted that the constituency home in Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester was her “primary residence” for council tax purposes. That designation means she avoids paying council tax on a second home, her grace-and-favour flat in Admiralty House, central London.

She is facing further scrutiny over which of her three homes is her primary residence, with the Tories accusing her of breaking electoral law to avoid paying council tax on her grace-and-favour home.

On Thursday, Ms Rayner’s spokesman repeatedly refused to say how much stamp duty she had paid on the Hove flat but denied any wrongdoing.

A spokesman for Ms Rayner said: “The Deputy Prime Minister paid the correct duty owed on the purchase, entirely properly and in line with all relevant requirements. Any suggestion otherwise is entirely without basis.”

Sources said she had followed all advice and complied with longstanding rules at all times, and paid all relevant and required taxes.

The Telegraph investigation shows alterations are being made to the Land Registry on her constituency home in Ashton-under-Lyne, which have not yet been made public. The official register states: “Applications are pending in HM Land Registry, which have not been completed against this title.”

The application to vary the ownership is understood to have been made before the purchase of the Hove flat on May 1 this year.

There is a three-year grace period in which second home owners can claim the surcharge back if they sell their first property within that time.

Sources close to Ms Rayner said her living arrangements were a result of her working in multiple locations – both as a constituency MP and as a secretary of state.

They pointed out that she had never owned any property in or near London, which explained why she bought the apartment in Hove. Her partner, Sam Tarry, a former Labour MP, previously lived nearby with his ex-wife.

Sources close to Ms Rayner have acknowledged that she does pay the second homes council tax premium on the Hove flat, the existence of which has led to scrutiny of her living arrangements. She is registered to vote at all three locations – in Ashton, Hove and London.

Ms Rayner has now been accused by the Tories of breaking electoral law to avoid paying council tax on Admiralty House.

Under a convention, the council tax bill for Ms Rayner’s flat in Admiralty House is covered by the taxpayer because it is designated as a second home. This arrangement hinges on her claim that her family home in Ashton-under-Lyne is her primary residence.

There is no requirement that she must own the Ashton-under-Lyne home, where her children stay with her ex-husband Mark Rayner, for it to be designated her main residence. She said in a magazine interview last year that she was in the process of divorcing Mr Rayner.

The Conservatives on Thursday night initiated a legal process to have Ms Rayner struck off the electoral roll in Ashton-under-Lyne on the basis that she does not “meet the legal tests for living there”.

If she is removed from the register in her constituency, she could become personally liable for the council tax bill on her grace-and-favour home in London.

The Tories claim that the electoral registrations are unlawful based on election law and case law. While MPs and students are allowed to have two residences, the party says there is no precedent for someone to have three if they do not actually live at the third.

Under the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001, a local elector can dispute and challenge an entry on the electoral roll.

As the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Ms Rayner is the minister with responsibility for election law, as well as council tax.

‘Electoral registrations are a sham’

Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative Party chairman, said: “Her three electoral registrations are a sham, cooked up to help her dodge council tax.

“She wants higher taxes on family homes, but doesn’t want to pay it herself. As the minister in charge of election law and council tax, ‘three votes Rayner’ cannot be a law-maker and a law-breaker.

“We are calling on the council to strike her from the electoral roll to safeguard the integrity of elections, and remove the fig leaf she is using to avoid paying council tax.”

If the application to strike Ms Rayner from the electoral roll in Tameside is successful, the Tories say this will collapse the “house of cards” by which she has avoided paying council tax on the Admiralty House flat.

This is because she will be eligible to vote in Westminster and Hove but not her constituency, making it more difficult to justify Ashton-under-Lyne as her main home for tax purposes.

The council in Ashton-under-Lyne says it considers “time spent at the property, both in length and regularity of visit” as well as “where the person is on the electoral roll” when determining someone’s primary residence.

If she is forced to designate her London flat as her main home, Ms Rayner would have to foot the council tax bill herself, which would ordinarily be £2,000 per year.

The Government is currently paying double that on Ms Rayner’s behalf because the flat is designated as her second home, making it liable for the second homes council tax premium implemented by Labour this year.

Council urged to strike Rayner off roll

A local elector, who wishes to remain anonymous, has written to the chief executive of Tameside council urging him to strike Ms Rayner from the electoral roll.

The letter, seen by The Telegraph, argues that Ms Rayner “does not meet the residence qualifications for registration” in Tameside.

It states that, as of August 2025, she is registered to vote in Hove and London as well as Ashton-under-Lyne.

The London entry is for her previous rental flat in Westminster, which she treated as her second home before she was granted use of Admiralty House. It is understood Ms Rayner notified Westminster council that she had vacated the property when she moved to her grace-and-favour home.

Ms Rayner has added herself to the register in Hove, but remains on the roll in London and Ashton-under-Lyne. The letter argues that this implies “a degree of permanence to her Hove occupation”, and means she will have three options for where she votes in next year’s local elections.

It states: “Whilst it is established in law that one can have two entries on the electoral roll (e.g. students and MPs), I would question whether it is lawful to be on the electoral roll in three places.”

There is no explicit ban on registering to vote in three locations under electoral law.

However, the letter points to case law which suggests that the concept of “residence” for electoral purposes is defined as the place where someone “continues to live, the place where he sleeps and shelters and has his home”.

The Tories argue that Ms Rayner is breaking the law by designating Ashton-under-Lyne as her residence because she is “not habitually residing” there, and generally “sleeps and shelters and has her home” in London and in Hove.

Guidance from the Electoral Commission states: “Having a second home doesn’t necessarily mean that you can register there as well as at your permanent address.

“A person’s name may appear on the electoral register only if they reside at an address within the electoral area.

“Residence is not defined in law; however, in England and Wales it has been held by the courts to entail a ‘considerable degree of permanence’.”

We rarely see her, say neighbours

The letter to Tameside council also points out that neighbours have reported that Ms Rayner is rarely at her Ashton-under-Lyne property.

In an interview with The Times in February, Ms Rayner said her children “come to visit her” in London, and said one of her sons would be joining a call with her later that evening “because it’s the only way he can get to see me”.

The letter says it is therefore “reasonable to infer” that Ms Rayner spends the majority of her time working in London, with breaks spent in Hove.

A source close to Ms Rayner said: “Her home in Ashton-under-Lyne is her primary residence, and where she has been registered to vote for over a decade, entirely properly and within the rules.”

A Labour source said: “This official complaint from the Conservative Party will leave senior Tory MPs to explain why they themselves registered to vote in what they describe as ‘second’ homes to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority when claiming for their own bills – including council tax. The hypocrisy is as stunning as the stupidity.”