01 / 47 · Law & paper · SDLT
The surcharge does not care that the rent is rent.
The additional dwelling surcharge is a tax on owning another home. Structuring the second home as an HPP does not make it a first home.
The Mizan desk · 7 September 2026 · 8 min
The great SDLT fight of the 2000s was double taxation of alternative finance. That is fixed, with a cap. The surcharge on additional dwellings is a different tax. If you already own a home and you buy another — to let, for a son, for an expat return — the higher rate can apply to an HPP the same way it applies to a mortgage, because the relief was never a discount for piety.
HMRC relieved double tax. It did not relieve ambition.
Replacement and BTL
Replacing a main residence has its own rules and clocks. Buy-to-let has the surcharge as a default assumption. Gatehouse’s BTL products and Offa’s landlord book exist because the demand exists. They do not exist to dodge a tax. See stamp-duty for the smear history, buy-to-let for the worship of a second house. Then ask the solicitor which rate of land tax this file actually attracts.