Multiple Dwellings Relief abolished: what bulk buyers now pay
Buy four flats in one transaction for £800,000, and the stamp duty bill is now £70,000. Until 1 June 2024, the same purchase could be calculated at £46,000 — a £24,000 difference created by a single relief that no longer exists.
That relief was Multiple Dwellings Relief (MDR), and its removal is one of the least-understood Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) changes of the past two years. This guide explains the mechanism that vanished, the exact date it ended, and what — if anything — is left for someone buying more than one home at once.
The worked examples below assume the higher rates for additional properties apply, as they do for most portfolio, buy-to-let and second-property purchases. They are illustrative calculations of how the rules work, not a valuation of any property.
What Multiple Dwellings Relief did
MDR lived in Schedule 6B of the Finance Act 2003. It applied to a "relevant transaction" — a purchase, or a set of linked purchases, whose subject matter was an interest in two or more dwellings.
Rather than charging SDLT on the full price at the steep upper bands, MDR let a buyer:
- Divide the total consideration by the number of dwellings, to get an average price per dwelling;
- Calculate the SDLT due on that average price at the ordinary residential rates — including the additional-property surcharge where it applied;
- Multiply that figure back up by the number of dwellings.
A floor applied: the tax could never fall below 1% of the total consideration.
The point of the averaging was to keep more of the price inside the lower SDLT bands. A £800,000 block of four flats was taxed as four £200,000 purchases rather than one £800,000 purchase — and the marginal rate on £200,000 is far below the rate on the top slice of £800,000.
When it ended — and the transitional rule
MDR was abolished by the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024, following an announcement at the Spring Budget on 6 March 2024. The relief was withdrawn for transactions with an effective date on or after 1 June 2024. (The effective date is normally completion, but it can be pulled forward by "substantial performance" under section 44 of the Finance Act 2003 — broadly, taking possession or paying most of the price early.)
One narrow carve-out was kept: MDR could still be claimed where contracts were exchanged on or before 6 March 2024 and completed later, provided the contract was not varied or assigned afterwards. For every purchase since, the relief is simply unavailable.
What the bill looks like now
Without MDR, a purchase of two or more dwellings is charged at the full residential rates on the whole price, plus the 5% additional-property surcharge where the higher rates apply. The averaging is gone.
The table compares the two positions on identical purchases, holding the 5% surcharge constant so the figures isolate the effect of losing MDR alone. The "now" column is from Homecost's stamp duty calculator (HMRC England rates, fetched 21 July 2026); the "with MDR" column applies the old Schedule 6B averaging.
| Purchase | Total price | Per dwelling | SDLT now (no MDR) | SDLT with MDR | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 flats | £500,000 | £250,000 | £40,000 | £30,000 | £10,000 |
| 4 flats | £800,000 | £200,000 | £70,000 | £46,000 | £24,000 |
| 5 flats | £1,000,000 | £200,000 | £93,750 | £57,500 | £36,250 |
The gap widens as the deal grows, because more of the un-averaged price is dragged into the 5% and 10% residential bands. On the five-flat example, losing MDR adds £36,250 — the difference between a 5.75% and a 9.38% effective rate on the same £1,000,000.
The additional-property surcharge itself rose from 3% to 5% on 31 October 2024, a separate change; the "with MDR" column above already uses today's 5% surcharge, so the comparison shows only the MDR effect. Our guide to the additional-property surcharge covers that increase.
What survives for larger purchases
Two longstanding features of the SDLT code were not touched by the MDR abolition, and they matter most at the top end.
Six or more dwellings. Under section 116(7) of the Finance Act 2003, a single transaction involving six or more separate dwellings can be treated as non-residential. The non-residential scale is a flat three-slab structure — 0% up to £150,000, 2% to £250,000, and 5% above — and it carries no additional-property surcharge. On a £2,000,000 block of ten flats, the non-residential route produces £89,500, against £253,750 on the residential-plus-surcharge basis. This turns entirely on counting dwellings correctly, and what counts as a self-contained "single dwelling" is heavily litigated — see our explainer on the six-plus-dwellings rule. Where the six-dwelling line is close, buyers sometimes weigh the non-residential slab against the mixed-use route, a comparison set out in our note on the non-residential SDLT election.
Genuine mixed-use property. A transaction that includes a real non-residential element — a shop with a flat above, or a farm with a farmhouse — is charged at the same non-residential rates under section 116 of the Finance Act 2003. That treatment is unchanged. But HMRC polices the boundary hard, and classification is a question of fact and law, not a box a buyer can tick.
For a straightforward purchase of two to five dwellings with no non-residential element, there is now nothing to soften the bill: full residential rates plus the surcharge, on the aggregate price.
How common are these purchases?
Multi-dwelling and bulk transactions are a real slice of the market, not a fringe. HM Land Registry recorded 120,341 leasehold flat sales in England and Wales in 2025, and a further 38,340 transactions coded "Other" — the category that captures commercial units, land and mixed property (Homecost analysis of HM Land Registry Price Paid data, fetched 21 July 2026; see how we source our numbers). The Land Registry file does not flag which sales were bulk deals, so these figures are scale context rather than a count of portfolio purchases.
Owner-occupiers face a different question. A home bought with a self-contained annexe can still avoid the surcharge under the separate subsidiary dwelling exemption, which has its own value test — a distinct rule from MDR that was never affected by the abolition.
The bottom line
Multiple Dwellings Relief was an averaging mechanism that cut the SDLT on bulk residential purchases. Since 1 June 2024 it is gone, and buyers of two to five dwellings now pay full residential rates plus the 5% surcharge on the whole price. The six-or-more non-residential election and genuine mixed-use treatment remain the only routes off the residential scale — and both turn on facts that HMRC examines closely.
You can model any of these purchase prices in Homecost's stamp duty calculator, or look up what has actually sold on a street — for example Manchester's M1 flats — before weighing up a deal. Browse more stamp duty and buying-cost guides for the wider picture.
This is general information about how the rules work, not tax or legal advice. The stamp duty due on any particular transaction depends on its facts. Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.