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London’s prime property market back to pre-Brexit levels

More than 160 properties worth £10m or more were sold in London over the past year – the most since 2016 when Brexit spooked the global super-rich from investing in the UK’s “super-prime” market.

A total of 161 such sales – or three a week – were made in the capital in the year to March, according to the analysis of Land Registry data by the estate agent Knight Frank and the data provider LonRes.

The combined sum spent on the £10m-plus properties came in at £3.1bn, which works out to an average of just more than £19m a sale, and was up from the £2.5bn total spent on 144 properties in the previous year.

Paddy Dring, the global head of prime sales at Knight Frank, said: “After everything that has happened in recent years, London is still highly regarded by global buyers.”

However, he added that he expected super-prime sales to drop by at least 10% over the next 12 months as the global super-rich and their advisers worried about the prospects of Labour winning the next general election – expected to be held next year – and fulfilling the party’s pledge to scrap a tax loophole for non-doms.

Super-rich people resident in the UK and registered as having non-domicile status with a permanent home outside the country are legally allowed to avoid paying more than £3.2bn of tax on at least £10.9bn of offshore income a year, according to a report released last year.

An analysis of data by academics at the University of Warwick and the London School of Economics found that 26,000 people granted non-dom tax status by HM Revenue and Customs collected an average of £420,000 a year in unreported overseas income and capital gains.

The prime minister’s wife, Akshata Murty, avoided up to £20m in tax on dividends from Infosys, an IT business co-founded by her father, thanks to her non-dom status. Last year, Murty agreed to pay tax on all future worldwide income, though not on past earnings.

“Discussions around the general election have started to creep into conversations,” said Christian Lock-Necrews, the head of Knight Frank’s office in Knightsbridge, central London, where many of the most expensive properties are located.

The estate agency added: “Issues such as the taxation of wealth and property and the status of non-doms are likely to come under growing scrutiny.”

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