SALES of million pound homes in Scotland more than doubled this year as wealthy buyers rushed to avoid a change in tax laws.
The number of high-value properties changing hands rose by 158 per cent during the first half of the year, a stark contrast to the rest of the UK where there was an 11 per cent decrease.
However, most of the sales took place before the implementation of the Scottish Government's Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) in April, which added almost £40,000 in tax on top of the price of homes worth £1m or over.
Edinburgh saw the highest increase in million pound homes sales in Scotland, and also the greatest amount of transactions with 62 top-end properties sold in the first half of the year, according to the Bank of Scotland Million Pound Property Report.
East Lothian was second with nine £1 million pound homes changing hands, an increase of seven, while eight were bought in Aberdeen, two more than in 2014.
East Renfrewshire and Glasgow both saw four high-value houses under new ownership, a 100 per cent increase for both areas as none had been sold the year before.
Other council areas to record activity at the top of the property market include South Ayrshire, Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire, Fife and South Lanarkshire, where there were three, the Scottish Borders with two, while Clackmannanshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Highland and Inverclyde recorded one each.
Nitesh Patel, economist at Bank of Scotland said: "The amount of homes in Scotland that have sold for more than a million pounds has more than doubled within a year, which is a stark contract to Great Britain as a whole, which has seen an 11 per cent decrease.
"Sales south of the border may have been impacted by the new Stamp Duty rates last December; whilst the equivalent Land and Building Transaction Tax came into force for Scottish homebuyers only in April.
“It’s no surprise that Edinburgh had the most million pound sales in Scotland, however four regions went from having no sales last year to three or four this year.
"East Renfrewshire, Glasgow City, South Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire. Edinburgh, East Lothian and Aberdeen continue to dominate the market share of million pound property sales in Scotland.”
Across the UK as a whole, the number of property sales worth at least a million pounds fell in the first half of 2015 from 6,303 to 5,599.
This represents the first decline in sales since 2012, when the number of property transactions contracted by 7 per cent over the corresponding period in 2011.
London remains the region with the highest number of million pound property sales in the UK with 3,703, followed by the South East with 1,037 and the East of England with 403.
However, Scotland sits in fifth place of a UK-wide league table with 111 sales.
Faisal Choudhry Director of Scottish Research at estate agent Savills, said that is was no surprise that tax changes had kick-started the market.
He added: "What we are seeing is the big surge ahead of the arrival of LBTT, which the Bank of Scotland acknowledges.
"Much of the activity took place during the first three months of the year as people tried to take advantage of the lower rates.
"Since April the number of homes changing hands has slowed considerably, and there have only been around 20 transactions since the new tax came into force."
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