Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, has been accused of avoiding £40,000 in stamp duty on her new flat by the sea after she told authorities it was her primary residence.
Rayner, who is also the secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, was said to have removed her name from the official deed to her house in Greater Manchester weeks before buying an £800,000 flat in Hove, East Sussex.
According to The Telegraph, Rayner would have had to pay £70,000 in stamp duty on a second property, so the change saved her £40,000. She is thought to have paid only £30,000.
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She also told Tameside council in Greater Manchester that the house in her constituency was still her main home, before telling Brighton and Hove council that her new flat was her second home, which would change her status for council tax.
Rayner has not broken any law in declaring her new flat to be her primary residence, but questions have been raised over whether she did so to pay less stamp duty and council tax.
Rayner’s new flat in Hove, East Sussex, is said to have cost £800,000
ALAMY
Sources close to Rayner told The Telegraph that her home in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, was in fact her “primary residence”. The designation would mean she could avoid paying council tax on her second home, a grace-and-favour apartment in Admiralty House, central London.
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The deputy prime minister faces further questions over which of her three homes is her primary residence. Tory politicians accused her of breaking electoral law to avoid paying council tax on the Admiralty House apartment. On Thursday night, the Conservatives initiated a legal process to remove Rayner from the electoral roll in Ashton-under-Lyne, claiming she did not “meet the legal tests for living there”.
If removed from the register in her constituency, she could be personally liable for the council tax bill on her grace-and-favour home.
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 live at the third.
Rayner’s spokesman denied any wrongdoing and refused to say how much stamp duty she had paid on the Hove flat.
The spokesman said on Thursday: “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.”