By the Nock Deighton lettings team | September 2026
If you own a rental property in Shropshire or Worcestershire, the last few weeks have been noisy. Capital gains tax going up. A wealth tax. A land value tax replacing council tax and stamp duty. A new Prime Minister in July, a new Chancellor, and a Budget confirmed for Wednesday 28 October.
Some landlords have already asked us whether they should sell before then.
The answer is that they cannot. And once you see why, the whole question changes shape.
Why you cannot sell before the 28 October Budget
Since 1 May 2026, if you want your tenant to leave so you can sell the property empty, you have to use a specific legal reason called Ground 1A. It requires at least four months’ notice, and that notice cannot take effect within the first twelve months of the tenancy.
Serve notice in early September and the earliest you get the property back is January 2027. The government’s own figures put the average time from agreed sale to completion at around 120 days. A landlord starting today is realistically looking at the middle of 2027 before the money is in the bank.
The Budget will be seven months behind you by then.
So selling ahead of it is not on the table. Whatever the Chancellor announces on 28 October, you will know it in full, in writing, long before you complete. There is nothing to gain by guessing now.
There is a great deal to lose by guessing wrong. Once you have used Ground 1A you cannot re-let or even advertise the property to let for twelve months. Not if the buyer pulls out. Not if the chain collapses. Not if the offers never come. Penalties reach £40,000, and there is no sympathy clause for a sale that falls through. A typical local rental brings in around £975 a month in Shropshire, so a failed sale costs you more than £11,000 in rent, plus every bill an empty house still generates.
That is an expensive way to react to a headline.
What is confirmed for landlords, and what is just a headline
It is worth knowing which is which, because very little of the coverage separates them for you.
Two things are already law and have nothing to do with October. From April 2027, individual landlords pay two percentage points more tax on rental income, taking the rates to 22%, 42% and 47%. Income tax thresholds stay frozen to the end of the decade, which quietly pulls more landlords into higher bands as rents rise. Both were announced last November.
Two more have been ruled out. In July the Prime Minister said stamp duty will not be reformed in this Budget, and that council tax and stamp duty are not being replaced by a single property tax. The 5% surcharge on additional properties stays exactly where it is.
Everything else you have read is speculation. Aligning capital gains tax with income tax. Lowering the £2 million threshold on the new surcharge for high value homes. A broad wealth tax. Heavily reported, none of it announced. The rate on a rental property sale today is 18% or 24% depending on your income, with a £3,000 tax-free allowance, and that is the only number anyone can plan around.
We have been here before. The rumours ahead of last November’s Budget started in August and ran for three months, and the two biggest, a National Insurance charge on rental income and an annual tax on homes worth more than £500,000, never happened. Rightmove’s own analysis of that autumn is blunt about the damage they did anyway: the speculation hit pricing and activity, and sellers ended up discounting to tempt nervous buyers.
The sales market you would be selling into
Rightmove’s August figures show asking prices for newly listed homes fell 2.0% in a single month, the largest August drop since 2018. The number of homes for sale is at a twelve-year high for this time of year. Asking prices are 1.0% below where they were a year ago. Rightmove has cut its forecast for 2026 from a 2% rise to somewhere between no change and a 2% fall.
Now the other side of your balance sheet. Live portal analysis puts median asking rents in Shropshire at around £975 pcm, with rents across Worcestershire averaging around £1,000 pcm. The supply of rental homes is still well below pre-pandemic levels, which means more tenants competing for fewer homes across Bridgnorth, Telford, Ludlow, Shrewsbury and Kidderminster.
So the trade the headlines are offering you is this. Sell a rising income into a market where buyers have more choice than at any point in twelve years, to avoid a tax that has not been announced, on a timetable that hands you the answer months before you complete anyway.
And if you ever want back in, the surcharge is waiting. A £200,000 rental costs £11,500 in stamp duty as an investment. The same house bought as your own home costs £1,500. Selling a rental is close to a one-way door.
Being a landlord got harder. Owning the property did not.
That is the distinction the coverage keeps missing, and it is the one that matters. The asset is performing. The work around the asset has become a job.
Most landlords who tell us they are thinking of selling are not tired of the income. They are tired of the deadlines, the certificates, and the worry that one missed rule could cost them dearly. Those are two different problems, and only one of them is solved by giving up a well performing asset in a slow market.
The next round is already visible. The national landlord database begins its regional rollout from late 2026, with mandatory registration, an annual fee, and accurate details and current safety certificates required for every property you let. For a landlord managing alone, that lands on your desk. For a fully managed landlord, it lands on ours.
We are number one for lettings in Bridgnorth and have been letting across Shropshire for more than forty years, through every change the market has thrown at landlords. Every applicant goes through our qualification process before you are asked to approve them, because getting the right tenant in at the start now matters more than it ever has. If you want the income protected too, our rent guarantee is backed by a master insurance policy, with any claim handled by us rather than by you. And you deal with a local team who know your property and your tenant by name.
Decide on your numbers, not on a rumour
There is one thing worth doing between now and 28 October, and it is not selling.
Find out where you actually stand. Get a current rental figure and a current sale figure from someone who has let and sold on your street, so that whatever the Chancellor says in October, you are weighing it against real numbers rather than a portal estimate. It is also worth checking your rent is where it should be. Rent can now only be increased once a year, by formal notice, and your tenant can ask a tribunal to review it, so getting it right first time matters far more than it used to. If your rent has drifted below the market, closing that gap is a gain you control, unlike anything happening in Westminster.
And if the Budget does change something that affects you, we will tell you what it means for your property, in plain English, within days. That is part of the service and it costs you nothing.
Book a free rental review with your local Nock Deighton office, or request a rental valuation online.
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