Michael Gove is lobbying the Treasury to impose a “foreign ownership levy” on homes to deter international investors from buying residential property in the UK.
The levelling-up secretary is understood to be pushing Jeremy Hunt to introduce the charge, which could raise up to £1bn a year, in the Budget.
It would be applied to all foreign owners of homes in the UK where it was not their principal residence.
Estimates suggest that more than 180,000 properties in the UK have foreign domiciled owners, a figure that has more than doubled in the past 12 years.
