Manor owners need tax breaks ‘like National Trust’

Private historic houses open to public need a ‘level playing field’ with heritage group in order to survive

PRIVATE country house owners need a “level playing field” with the National Trust on tax if heritage is to be secured, a former chairman has warned.

Sir William Proby, head of the charity 2003 to 2008, said manor owners had endured a “savagely difficult time” during the pandemic but their role in society had “never been more important”.

He told the annual general meeting of Historic Houses, the association for 1,500 UK properties, that “the first and most important rule is survival, and that is now what we have to do”.

Most manors open to the public are not owned by charities or government agencies, meaning they cannot benefit from Gift Aid, grants, VAT relief or other advantages of charitable status of bodies such as the National Trust. Sir William said: “We need a fiscal background that allows owners to put the massive cost of maintaining properties against other income. It comes down to having a level playing field compared to the National Trust, English Heritage and the public sector.”

He singled out rising repair costs, which are subject to 20 per cent VAT, and sideways loss relief as two areas which aristocrats who have owned properties for generations are lobbying ministers to change. Historic Houses estimates that owners face a backlog of nearly £1.5 billion of essential repairs and maintenance, of which nearly £500million is urgent.

This has grown during the pandemic, as turnover has halved, visitor numbers fell by three quarters and houses have been unable to bring in their usual income from wedding and events rentals, film sets, holiday accommodation or public attractions.

The Trust’s report for 2020-21 shows it received £79million from individual donors, charitable trusts, grant funders and gifts in wills. Sir William, of Elton Hall, near Peterborough, home of the Proby family since 1660, quoted the novelist Henry James: “Of all the great things that the English have invented the most perfect, the most characteristic is the well appointed, well administered, well filled country house.”

He told the meeting of house owners: “In a few weeks’ time you will be told by your accountant what tax you need to pay for the last tax year, and I bet many of you will be surprised that in a year when you’ll have made substantial losses you’re still going to pay a large tax bill. But in the meantime, we face rising costs, higher interest rates, a higher minimum wage, increased National Insurance and the greatest tax burden as a nation since the years after the Second World War. And of course the burden of regulation increases inexorably.”

Country house owners warned last year that they face soaring maintenance bills as a result of climate change and stormy weather creating more leaky roofs, damaged masonry and flooded cellars than ever before.