01 / 21 · Faith · Worship
Zakat on bricks: the house you sleep in, and the one you don’t.
Your residence is generally not zakatable. The buy-to-let, the plot, the unbuilt unit, and the intended flip are. Mixing them is how people underpay.
The Mizan desk · 7 September 2026 · 9 min
Personal use — the home, the furniture, the car — sits outside the zakat pot in the inherited schools. A second house held for rent or sale does not become personal use because you stayed a weekend. A plot you intend to build ‘one day’ is closer to trade stock the longer ‘one day’ gets.
How to calculate without lying
Investment property: many scholars take 2.5% of market value annually once nisab and hawl are met; others take 2.5% of net rental yield, treating it like income. The first is harder on a leveraged BTL; the second undercounts if you never sell. Pick a method with a scholar who knows your book, then keep it.
Your HPP share of a residence is still a residence. Do not zakat the bank’s share. Do not skip zakat on cash sitting in the account you opened ‘for the deposit’ if that cash has sat a year.