English house prices rose 2.3 percent in the year to May 2026. Over the same period Kensington and Chelsea fell 10.7 percent, the City of Westminster 22.8 percent and the City of London 28.1 percent. Those are not forecasts or agent estimates. They are HM Land Registry’s own index, compiled from completed and registered transactions.
Prime central London has detached from the country it sits in, and the separation began in the late summer of 2025.
The twelve-month series, because one month proves nothing
A 28 percent annual fall in a borough as small as the City of London is exactly the shape a small-sample artefact takes, and it would have been irresponsible to publish the May figure alone. So we pulled every month back to June 2025. Annual percentage change, HM Land Registry UK House Price Index, read on 5 August 2026.
| Area | Jun 25 | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan 26 | Feb | Mar | Apr | May 26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kensington and Chelsea | 1.9 | 2.3 | 1.6 | -2.9 | -6.1 | -5.9 | -4.3 | -5.3 | -6.8 | -6.5 | -7.4 | -10.7 |
| City of Westminster | 6.5 | 7.2 | -5.1 | -1.8 | -9.1 | -7.1 | -12.1 | -9.6 | -11.6 | -12.3 | -18.8 | -22.8 |
| City of London | 6.3 | 7.8 | 8.7 | -2.0 | -1.5 | -4.0 | -6.8 | -12.2 | -14.2 | -17.9 | -23.4 | -28.1 |
| Hammersmith and Fulham | 1.8 | -1.8 | -4.3 | -3.5 | -3.1 | -3.3 | -3.9 | -6.2 | -5.8 | -5.3 | -8.4 | -10.9 |
| Camden | 7.3 | 5.1 | 5.6 | 3.6 | 1.1 | -3.4 | -6.2 | -6.9 | -7.9 | -5.7 | -4.7 | -6.2 |
| London (all) | 1.9 | 2.1 | 0.1 | -0.6 | -1.1 | -0.5 | -1.4 | -1.9 | -3.2 | -1.8 | -2.3 | -3.7 |
| England | 2.3 | 2.3 | 1.9 | 1.4 | 1.9 | 2.4 | 1.4 | 1.1 | 1.1 | -0.3 | 4.0 | +2.3 |
The pattern is not noise. Every prime borough in the table was positive in June 2025 and deeply negative by May 2026, and in Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, the City of London and Hammersmith and Fulham the decline has deepened in every month since January 2026. The City of London swung from +8.7 percent in August 2025 to -28.1 percent in May 2026, a 37-point move in nine months. England was negative in one month out of twelve.
What prime London property is worth now, in levels
Percentages describe direction. These are the levels behind them, from the same index and the same month, May 2026.
| Area | Average price | Annual change | Flats | Detached |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kensington and Chelsea | £1,255,567 | -10.7% | -11.0% | -8.2% |
| City of Westminster | £836,331 | -22.8% | -23.1% | -20.3% |
| Camden | £805,837 | -6.2% | -6.7% | -3.5% |
| Richmond upon Thames | £788,872 | -2.5% | -4.1% | -2.4% |
| Hammersmith and Fulham | £729,407 | -10.9% | -11.6% | -9.0% |
| Islington | £669,879 | -6.4% | -7.0% | -3.1% |
| Wandsworth | £659,547 | -6.1% | -6.9% | -5.8% |
| City of London | £626,980 | -28.1% | -28.1% | n/a |
| London (all) | £544,814 | -3.7% | -6.6% | -2.3% |
| England | £292,095 | +2.3% | -2.2% | +2.5% |
Kensington and Chelsea remains the most expensive borough measured, at £1,255,567, roughly 4.3 times the England average of £292,095. The gap is closing from the top rather than the bottom.
Flats are falling faster than houses everywhere, and hardest in prime London
In every prime borough measured in May 2026 flats fell faster than detached homes: -11.0 against -8.2 percent in Kensington and Chelsea, -23.1 against -20.3 in Westminster, -11.6 against -9.0 in Hammersmith and Fulham. The same split runs nationally, where flats and maisonettes fell 2.2 percent while detached homes rose 2.5 percent.
Flats were the only English property type to record a fall in the year to May 2026. In prime central London, where the stock is overwhelmingly flats and the leasehold, service-charge and building-safety costs attached to them have risen sharply, that national weakness lands on the most expensive square footage in the country.
On what changed in 2025, and what this data can and cannot show
The prime London divergence begins in the UKHPI series around August and September 2025. The United Kingdom abolished non-domiciled tax status on 6 April 2025, replacing it with the four-year foreign income and gains regime, a change this publication covered in our account of the non-dom abolition. The timing is consistent with a market losing a specific category of buyer.
Consistent is not the same as caused, and the index cannot settle it. UKHPI reports prices, not buyer nationality or tax residence, so nothing in this data identifies who stopped buying or why. Interest rates, stamp duty at the top of the market, building-safety costs on leasehold flats and the general repricing of European residence regimes are all live at the same time. Anyone presenting one cause as proven is going beyond the evidence, and the pattern is worth publishing without the story attached.
How to read HM Land Registry’s index, and where it is weak
- It lags about two months. UKHPI is built from registered completions, so May 2026 data reflects sales agreed earlier in the year. The lag is the price of measuring transactions that actually happened.
- Small boroughs are volatile. The City of London registers very few residential sales a month, so its index moves more than a larger area’s on the same underlying change. This is precisely why the twelve-month series above matters more than any single figure.
- It is mix-adjusted, not a repeat-sales index. A shift in what is selling can move the average independently of what any individual home is worth.
- It measures prices, not volumes. A market where few people transact can print stable prices while being effectively closed.
With those limits stated, the finding stands: on the government’s own numbers, prime central London fell through the year to May 2026 while England rose, and the fall accelerated in each of the last five months measured.
Frequently asked questions
Are prime London house prices falling in 2026?
Yes. On HM Land Registry’s index for May 2026, Kensington and Chelsea fell 10.7 percent year on year, Westminster 22.8 percent and the City of London 28.1 percent, while England rose 2.3 percent.
How much is the average home in Kensington and Chelsea?
£1,255,567 in May 2026, down 10.7 percent year on year, and about 4.3 times the England average of £292,095.
Is this just one volatile month?
No. Hammersmith and Fulham recorded a negative annual change in 11 of the 12 months to May 2026, Westminster in 10, and Kensington and Chelsea and the City of London in 9 each. England recorded one.
This piece is part of our property reference, What a British House Costs to Hold: Official Prices, by Region and by Borough, which sets out the method and collects every figure we have published on the subject. Also in it: The Cheapest Parts of Britain Are Rising Fastest. The Most Expensive Is the Only One Falling., Every London Borough, Ranked: 20 of 33 Fell, and the Worst Is Not the Most Expensive, Flats Are the Weakest Property Type in All 13 UK Regions. In England They Fell 2.2 Percent While Detached Rose 2.5., The Top Third of US Housing Lagged the Bottom in 65% of Metros. In the Biggest 25, It Led., Stamp Duty on a 10 Million Pound House Runs From 1.11m to 1.81m. The House Is the Same..
Sources
All figures are HM Land Registry UK House Price Index data for the months stated, read on 5 August 2026. Month-by-month series, negative-month counts and the comparisons between boroughs are our arithmetic on the published index.
- HM Land Registry: UK House Price Index, the official index compiled from registered completions
- HM Land Registry linked-data API, the machine-readable endpoint the figures above were pulled from