View all newsletters
Have the short, sharp Spear's newsletter delivered to your inbox each week
  1. Wealth
December 12, 2012

Wayne Coleman: Draft Finance Bill Will Hit London’s Prime Property Market

By Spear's

Freddy Barker speaks to leading real estate financier Wayne Coleman about how yesterday’s draft Finance Bill will affect London’s prime property market.

YESTERDAY’S DRAFT FINANCE Bill unveiled a series of alarming measures for UHNWs, most especially the annual levy of £140,000 and 28% Capital Gains Tax rate on corporate vehicles used to buy £20m-plus homes.

Collectively, these changes force UHNWs to choose between a mansion tax and a privacy intrusion — if they decide to avoid the charges by purchasing property in their own name rather than through a corporate vehicle, their ownership of the property will thereby be made public. This is a startling development, which many believe will threaten London’s private client community.

Wayne Coleman (pictured above left), a leading real estate financier, predicts, however, that, ‘UHNWs are unlikely to sweat the charge as they will have made all their tax savings through complex international structuring over a number of years and so being told to pay slightly more means little when compared to the bonus of getting the right home or avoiding extreme tax regimes elsewhere.

Read more: Withers: Autumn Statement has mansion tax by another name

‘But,’ he continues, ‘the implications are greater for the £2m – 5m bracket. That segment has always seen a disproportion between house prices and buyers’ net worth as, for example, £3m houses are bought by people worth £5m, in stark contrast to the super-prime market where £15m houses are typically acquired by UHNWs valued above £100m.

‘Therefore the government’s draft legislation paper has exacerbated the implications in this price bracket as many will have to purchase in their own name in order to avoid the taxes imposed on non-natural persons, whereas the upper tier will continue to view these taxes as peripheral.’

London’s private client community will certainly be hoping Coleman is right, and that headlines such as ‘Roman Abramovich purchases a £90m Kensington Palace Gardens mansion’ and ‘Rinat Akhmetov acquires £136m One Hyde Park apartment,’ continue.
 
Read more from Wealth Wednesday

Content from our partners
Abu Dhabi Finance Week in the 'Capital of Capital'
Experience Seekers: The Future of Luxury Travel
How Hamblin Family Law is exploring a groundbreaking pricing model

Don’t miss out on the best of Spear’s articles – sign up to the Spear’s weekly newsletter

Select and enter your email address The short, sharp email newsletter from Spear’s
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy policy for more information about our services, how Progressive Media Investments may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network