Tuesday, March 15, 2016

The Blairs flair for property

Tony Blair has a property worth an estimated £27m, with he, his wife and his children owning at least 10 houses and 27 flats between them.

Starting with a house in his former Sedgefield constituency - which was bought for £30,000 in 1983 and sold for £275,000 in 2009 - the family has built a property portfolio worth £27m including several properties in central London. Blair has also helped his three eldest children get on the property ladder as each of them have their own home in central London just a few miles from the Georgian townhouse in Connaught Square which the Blairs bought when they left Downing Street.

Daughter Kathryn, a barrister in her mid-20s, is named as the sole owner of a one-bedroom mews house near Marylebone, which the family were reported to have bought in Cherie’s name for £1.2m in 2014. The house was registered in Kathryn’s name the following year and would not have attracted stamp duty, as long as the transfer was a gift. There is no mortgage on the house and, despite recent wobbles at the top end of the property market, Kathryn is likely to be looking at a profit should she sell. The property website Zoopla estimates the house is worth more than £1.4m.

Cherie is also named as the co-owner, with Kathryn, of a house in Buckinghamshire, near the family’s country home. The four-bedroom property was originally bought for £600,000 by Cherie with her husband’s sister, Sarah. It was valued at £700,000 in September 2013 when Kathryn’s name was swapped on to the title. A month later, the property was advertised to rent for £2,500 a month, or £30,000 a year. Offered by the agents part-furnished, it was described as “exceptionally well presented and high spec”. Properties in Buckinghamshire have gone up by 27% since the house was bought, according to the Land Registry, so it could now be worth around £763,000. With no mortgage on the property, the transfer of the property will not have attracted stamp duty.

 Elder son Euan with Cherie is a director of Oldbury Residential, which owns a portfolio of buy-to-let flats in Manchester and Stockport. The company’s filings show Cherie and Euan each have 50% of the shares in Oldbury and that it has bought 27 flats with mortgages from Lloyds bank, costing a total of just under £2.2m. One flat on a street where Oldbury Residential owns 10 properties is up for rent at £650 a month, while others in the same Stockport blocks have been advertised for £500 a month. At a rent of £500, they would bring in £13,500 a month, or £162,000 a year. One flat on a street where Oldbury Residential owns 10 properties is up for rent at £650 a month, while others in the same Stockport blocks have been advertised for £500 a month. At a rent of £500, they would bring in £13,500 a month, or £162,000 a year.

The Blair’s second son who works as a football agent, is the owner of a Georgian townhouse in central London. The three-bedroom property was bought for £1.35m in September and, like the other homes bought by the family, has been improved. Planning was granted for a single-storey extension after the property changed hands. Property website Zoopla estimates it is worth £2m and has a rental value of £6,900 a month.


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