Richmond upon Thames and Kingston upon Thames share a border along the Thames in south-west London, yet a typical home in Richmond costs around £705 a month more to run than one in Kingston. Only £10 of that gap comes from council tax — Kingston's Band D bill is actually £123.10 a year higher than Richmond's. Almost the entire difference comes down to one number: the purchase price.
That makes this a cleaner test of a point we made comparing Kingston against Wandsworth: once two council tax bills are close together, the headline tax figure tells you almost nothing about which area costs more to live in day to day — the mortgage does nearly all the work.
The two boroughs at a glance
Figures use 2025 Land Registry completed sales (standard transactions, houses and flats) for the median price, gov.uk Band D for 2026-27, and a repayment mortgage on a 25% deposit at the most recent Bank of England quoted rate for a five-year fix at 75% loan-to-value (4.32%, April 2026). Your own rate will depend on your lender, deposit and circumstances.
| Measure | Kingston upon Thames | Richmond upon Thames |
|---|---|---|
| Median sale price (2025) | £550,000 | £722,250 |
| Council tax, Band D (2026-27) | £2,609.20 | £2,486.10 |
| Council tax per month | £217 | £207 |
| Mortgage per month (75% LTV, 25yr) | £2,251 | £2,956 |
| All-in per month (mortgage + council tax) | £2,468 | £3,163 |
| Council tax as % of that monthly bill | 8.8% | 6.6% |
| Stamp duty, home mover | £17,500 (3.18%) | £26,112.50 (3.62%) |
| Homes rated EPC C or above | 26.7% | 30.0% |
Prices are drawn from 1,971 Kingston and 2,748 Richmond transactions recorded in 2025. Band D is a benchmark band, not most households' actual bill — a Band A home pays two-thirds of the Band D figure, a Band H home twice as much.
A £123-a-year tax gap, swallowed by a £705-a-month total
Kingston's council tax is the highest of any London borough — £2,609.20, a fact covered in more detail in our cheapest and most expensive council tax authorities in England guide. Richmond's bill, at £2,486.10, is only 4.7% lower. That is a trivial gap next to the 2.54× spread between Kingston and Wandsworth's Band D bills covered in our earlier comparison — there, council tax was large enough to meaningfully offset a big chunk of the mortgage difference. Here, it barely registers: £10.26 a month, against a total gap of £694.67.
The reason the total gap is so wide is simply that Richmond's typical home costs £172,250 more than Kingston's. On a 25% deposit, that's £129,187.50 more to borrow, which adds roughly £705 a month to the mortgage at the April 2026 quoted rate — almost exactly matching the all-in monthly difference, because the two boroughs' council tax bills are close enough to cancel out.
| Line item | Kingston | Richmond | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mortgage per month | £2,251 | £2,956 | Richmond +£705 |
| Council tax per month | £217 | £207 | Richmond −£10 |
| All-in per month | £2,468 | £3,163 | Richmond +£695 |
What the two markets look like underneath the median
Both boroughs sell a mix of flats and houses, but Richmond is pricier at every property type, not just overall:
| Property type | Kingston median | Richmond median |
|---|---|---|
| Detached | £1,100,000 | £1,600,000 |
| Semi-detached | £765,000 | £1,090,000 |
| Terraced | £569,000 | £899,950 |
| Flat | £385,000 | £475,000 |
Flats are the single largest category in both boroughs by volume (781 of Kingston's 2025 sales, 1,086 of Richmond's), which keeps both medians below what the detached and semi-detached figures alone would suggest.
Both sit above the stamp duty relief cliff
Because both medians sit well above £500,000, first-time buyer relief makes no difference in either borough — the relief is withdrawn entirely above that threshold, so a first-time buyer pays exactly the same stamp duty as a home mover at either median. A mover buying at Kingston's £550,000 median pays £17,500 (3.18%); at Richmond's £722,250 median, £26,112.50 (3.62%). We cover exactly where that withdrawal happens, and why it is a cliff rather than a slope, in our guide to the first-time buyer relief taper from £300k to £500k. A buyer of an additional property pays the 5% surcharge on top of either figure.
Richmond's housing stock is slightly greener
Richmond edges Kingston on energy efficiency too: 30.0% of its EPC-certified homes are rated C or above, against 26.7% in Kingston. Both lag the roughly 40% C+ share seen across England & Wales as a whole, reflecting the age of outer-London Victorian and Edwardian stock in both boroughs. EPC modelled running costs use dated assumptions and should be read as directional, not as a current energy bill.
The bottom line
When two neighbouring boroughs' council tax bills are this close, the tax figure stops being the interesting number. Richmond and Kingston prove the point cleanly: a 4.7% tax difference running the "wrong" way (the cheaper-to-buy borough pays the higher bill) has essentially no bearing on which one costs more to live in — the £172,250 gap in purchase price decides almost the entire £695-a-month difference on its own.
To see the all-in cost of a specific home, search a postcode on Homecost. A Richmond Hill postcode such as TW10 6BF recorded multiple sales in recent years; you can compare it against a Kingston street of your choice. Richmond's own price history is covered in more depth in Richmond upon Thames house prices in 2026, and more borough and town comparisons are in the location planning section of the Homecost blog.
Based on 4,719 Land Registry sales across the two boroughs in 2025 and 2026-27 council tax for all 296 English billing authorities. This is general information, not advice. Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.