Nearly 6,000 Edinburgh households are set to be hit by the SNP’s new mansion tax, another assault on the capital’s aspirational middle classes, writes Herald columnist John McLellan

It will soon be spring time for surveyors. All those lovely big houses to be valued to create two new council tax bands on million-pound pads for what SNP Finance Secretary Shona Robison described as “greater fairness” and more revenue for councils.

First world problems and all that, but the latest assault on Edinburgh’s aspirational middle classes – who knew paying over seven figures for a house in the Boroughmuir and James Gillespie school catchment areas would come with a surprise supplement – was the talk of Edinburgh’s property world this week, and the pre-Christmas prediction of a leading expert, the director of research at estate agent Rettie, Dr John Boyle, bears repeating.

“A mansion tax seems unlikely (at least in this Budget) given the measures that would be required to introduce it, including revaluations of higher Council Tax bands,” he wrote, under a headline of “No nasty surprises”. Unlike his brother Frankie, he wasn’t having a laugh, but Ms Robison’s joke is on Edinburgh.

The number of million-pound houses in Scotland is hard to pin down, but as the Registers of Scotland said over half of the 391 properties sold for more than a million in 2024-25 were in Edinburgh, it’s fair to assume more than half are in the capital. Going by reports at the start of last year,........

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