Could Andy Burnham’s proposed land tax force landlords to sell?

Landlords will in effect become unpaid Council Tax collectors, with assets to backup the Local Authority for non-payers.

Reply to the comment left by Gromit at 29/06/2026 – 12:12
Yes, if this went ahead this would be one of the effects of the proposal. But despite the name “Fairer Share” the proposal isn’t anything at all to do with fairness; it is purely an asset-grab. And Andy Burnham’s support for it is also nothing to do with making the tax system more progressive. It’s entirely to do with the issues behind Pat McFadden’s comment that all back-bench labour MPs care about is who can be taxed to pay for benefits. The labour government came to power pretending to grow the economy, but they then launched a two-year attack on small business; they are obsessed by wealth distribution, not by economic success.

If the proposal went ahead as proposed it would cause a dramatic increase in rents. That wouldn’t bother most left-wing MPs because they don’t believe in market delivery anyway, and for the truly left-wing MPs and parties market–failure causes a proportion of the electorate to be more reliant upon them. It’s what they want.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 29/06/2026 – 13:32
“………..they are obsessed by wealth distribution………….” into their own pockets (or those of their friends).

Reply to the comment left by Gromit at 29/06/2026 – 15:47
I don’t know about this. There have been mixed reports about what Andy Burnham has achieved in Manchester, one of which is here:

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15841981/Burnhams-Manchester-miracle-homelessness-soaring-rents-REID.html

But I don’t know whether Andy Burham benefited personally from Deansgate Towers or not; the article does say that he opposes right to buy. He is reported as saying “the continued sale of social housing is like ‘trying to refill a bath without being allowed to put the plug back in’. Right to buy was a Margaret Thatcher innovation which Angela Rayner, a greater Manchester MP, took advantage of when she was working for a union before she became an MP.

The difficulty I have with right to buy is that where I live council tenants pay about 1/3 of market rent, together with a lower rate of council tax, then having paid below market rent for enough years they get to buy their property at a massive after-tax discount. If instead they only got perhaps a 10% discount from market rent and the council was exempted from capital gains tax if they immediately invested the funds in more residential property, they’d probably be able to house 2-3 families for every one family they currently house. Although they’d probably need to invest in alternative accommodation. That 3 bed semi might need to become 2-3 2-3 bed flats. I think that one of the problems with right to buy may have been that funds released from sale of council homes may not have gone to the local council.

I don’t know much about what else Andy Burnham believes in housing policy, other than he has recently supported a proposal that is clearly an asset-grab and that would raise rents for private sector tenants.

Hello, new to this forum. I am absolutely panicking. There are various issues:

1. The property land tax is on owners at 0.96%. Tenants will not have to pay council tax as this will be abolished. They will effectively pay less.

2. We can’t easily increase rent now under the new RRA as it can only be market rent, is easily disputed and delayed, can only be once a year. There is also no way a tenant can absorb basically twice the current council tax. If you have an expensive property it’s even worse.

3. So yields immediately go down and if you have a mortgage you could be in trouble.

4. CGT increases can be brought in quickly so even if you sell you could be paying 45% on the gain. It will be the top rate of tax if the gain is a lot and probably at least 40%.

5. It’s hard to move quick and sell in this market as the RRA now needs you to give 4 months notice to tenants. That’s a lot.

6. These changes are happening. It’s not a maybe. Individual landlords are at huge risk. Burnham has literally said these changes are coming.

7. Most people won’t care about this as they hate landlords. They will even be pleased. They are braying for our blood.

8. It won’t be long before rent caps come in especially with devolution to mayors . In london Khan is all for this.

Conclusion- we are stuffed. Do others agree with me?

Reply to the comment left by Ana at 29/06/2026 – 16:31
At the moment it’s just a proposal. But I agree, it’s a very negative proposal.

When George Osborne stopped non-incorporated landlords from being able to offset their finance costs against rents, initially it made little difference when interest rates were low, then it really started to bite as interest rates went up. Landlords didn’t have any choice but to increase rents, effectively recovering extra tax from tenants. It’s not a progressive tax at all, George Osborne’s tax was levied on tenants indirectly, just as the consequences of increasing employers national insurance and dropping the threshold at which it kicks are being visited on employees now. The government just lies about what the real effect is and the indirect nature of the tax allows them to get away with this lie.

If this proposal went ahead landlords wouldn’t have any choice but to raise rents to recover the extra tax. It’s not a progressive tax.

But on the Renters Rights Act and market rents, I think that a variety of elements of the Labour Renters Rights Act will push market rents up, just as this latest proposal to replace Stamp Duty Land Tax and Council Tax would push market rents up because landlords would either have to sell, as the title of the article suggests, or put rents up to recover the additional costs and avoid an after-tax loss. IF labour introduced a percentage cap on rent increases then as you suggest, many landlords would be stuffed (or forced to sell) but IF landlords can chase market rent up then the effect is different, rents would rocket for all new-lets, just as they did in Scotland when the SNP introduced their proposal to cap rents.

The longer term effect of this proposed policy is that like the Labour Renters Rights Act it’s a bit of social-engineering that would in effect over the longer term makes a private rented property a luxury commodity that only relative high-earners could afford. But one of the really big, negative problems with this proposal is that under the the proposal tenants’ Council Tax would be replaced by the new tax, and this would be paid by the landlord. That’s a really negative development that would make the whole tax system less accountable. But one of the other really big questions is would those tenants in Social Housing and Council housing, currently paying council tax, not then have to pay this ‘property tax’? Councils and Social Housing Providers are property owners. Do we actually think that the costs of these social-housing tenants’ services would really be met by their social-housing and council landlords? Or would the costs of these local services get dumped on owner-occupiers and private sector landlords?