Every year I get the same run of calls in the fortnight before a Budget. Should I wait? Should I rush? Is something about to change that makes my plans look silly? So rather than let you guess, here is what is actually confirmed ahead of the Autumn Budget on 28 October 2026, what is still only newspaper speculation, and what I would genuinely do about each one.
I will be straight with you about one thing up front. For most people reading this, the Budget is not the biggest thing happening to their mortgage this autumn. What has happened to rates over the last month matters more. I will come to that.
The date is set. Chancellor John Healey will deliver the Budget on Wednesday 28 October 2026, confirmed before Parliament's recess and reported by Which? in its October Budget briefing.
Beyond the date, a surprising amount of what is being discussed in the press is not government policy. It is briefing, speculation and kite flying. That distinction matters when you are deciding whether to exchange contracts next week.
This is the one the papers keep calling a mansion tax. It is not a rumour, it is already announced. It was confirmed at the last Budget and is due to start in England in 2028. The charge is £2,500 a year on properties valued above £2m, rising to £7,500 a year on properties above £5m. On the original thresholds it was expected to affect around 165,000 homes.
The rumour attached to it is different. The Times has reported that the government is considering lowering the entry threshold to £1.5m, which could pull in roughly another 100,000 properties. That part is unconfirmed. It may happen on 28 October, it may not happen at all.
If you own a home somewhere between £1.5m and £2m, that is worth watching. For the vast majority of homeowners in Hampshire and across the UK, it changes nothing.
Here is the one that surprises people. According to the same Which? briefing, no immediate changes to stamp duty or council tax are planned, which puts an end to a long run of speculation that both could be replaced with a land value tax.
I mention this because I have had clients genuinely considering delaying a purchase in the hope of a stamp duty giveaway. Based on what is currently briefed, that looks like a bet with poor odds. Delaying a purchase has real, certain costs: you keep paying rent, your mortgage offer ticks towards expiry, and in the current market your rate could well be worse by the time you come back.
This is the measure most likely to matter to first time buyers. The proposed scheme would let a first time buyer in England purchase a new build home with a 2.5% deposit, with a government backed equity loan covering 20% of the property value and an initial interest free period. Eligibility would depend on household income and local property price caps.
To put numbers on it, Which? used Rightmove's average first time buyer asking price of £225,199. On that figure the deposit would be around £5,630 and the equity loan around £45,040. The costs and the launch date are both due to be announced at the Budget, so 28 October is when this stops being a proposal and becomes something we can actually advise on.
If this is relevant to you, I have written a fuller explanation of how the structure works in our guide to the Your First Home scheme and the 2.5% deposit route. I will update it once the detail lands.
While everyone has been reading Budget speculation, the mortgage market has moved sharply, and not in a helpful direction.
According to Moneyfacts data reported by Mortgage Professional America on 8 October 2026, the average two year fixed rate reached 5.98% on 5 October. That is the highest it has been since December 2023. The average five year fixed rate touched 6%, which it had not done for roughly three years.
The detail that tells the real story is choice. The number of fixed deals priced below 5% fell from almost 1,500 in early September to nine. Not 900. Nine.
Behind that sits the Bank of England. The base rate was held at 3.75% on 17 September 2026, but the vote was six to three, with three of the nine Monetary Policy Committee members voting to raise it to 4%. The next decision is on 5 November 2026. Moneyfacts linked the lender repricing to swap rate volatility, and swap rates are what fixed mortgage pricing is actually built on.
This is the part people find counterintuitive, so if it is new to you, our guide on why mortgage rates rise while the base rate stays put walks through the mechanism properly.
House prices have essentially stopped moving. The Lloyds House Price Index for September put the average UK property at £298,441, with annual growth at 0.0%. Nationwide had the average at £274,251, with annual growth of 0.8% and a monthly fall of 0.2%. London was down 2.2% on the year.
Activity has slowed too. Bank of England figures showed 54,900 mortgage approvals for house purchase in August, the lowest since December 2023 and around 16% below the same month a year earlier. CPI inflation was 3.1% in August.
Put plainly: fewer buyers are active, prices are flat, and borrowing costs are up. That is an uncomfortable combination if you are selling. It is not necessarily a bad one if you are buying, because a thinner market typically means less competition on the offer you make. Our guide to UK housing market predictions goes into where this could head.
Do not pause for the Budget on the strength of a stamp duty rumour that is not currently briefed to happen. The certain cost of waiting is visible in the rate data above. If you already hold a mortgage offer, check its expiry date today, because offers typically run three to six months and rates have moved a long way in one month.
This is the group I would speak to first. If you are coming off a deal arranged in 2021 or 2022, the gap between your old rate and anything available now could be substantial, and the number of sub 5% options has collapsed. Most lenders let you reserve a rate some months ahead, and if pricing improves before completion it is often possible to move to the better deal. Start early rather than late. Our guide on what to do when your fixed rate mortgage ends sets out the sequence, and you can also read about remortgage advice on our main remortgage page.
Five year fixes at around 6% change the arithmetic on rental cover calculations, because most lenders stress buy to let affordability against the pay rate or a notional rate, whichever is higher. A deal that worked on paper in the spring may not stack up on the same rent today. If you are weighing up whether to hold or sell, our guide on whether buy to let is still worth it is a reasonable starting point. Your property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.
Watch the threshold announcement on 28 October rather than acting before it. The surcharge does not begin until 2028 in England, so there is time to plan properly once the rules are actually known. Making a significant property decision now based on an unconfirmed newspaper report would be premature.
I would not pull out of a purchase you are happy with. I would not delay a remortgage that is already overdue. I would not make an irreversible decision about a property based on a measure that has not been announced, and I would not assume a Budget will rescue a deal that does not work on today's numbers.
Budgets rarely change what is sensible for an individual household. They change the edges. The core question, whether the borrowing is affordable for you over the term you are taking it, is the same on 29 October as it is today. We have covered the general pattern of how a UK Budget affects mortgages and house prices before, and the honest answer is usually less than the headlines suggest.
On what has been briefed so far, no immediate changes to stamp duty are planned, according to Which?'s October Budget briefing. That could change on the day, but there is currently no confirmed proposal to act on.
In most cases the costs of waiting are more certain than the benefits. Rates have risen sharply over the past month and the number of deals below 5% has fallen dramatically. If a purchase works on today's figures, waiting for an announcement that may not come carries real risk. Everyone's circumstances differ, which is why it is worth taking advice on your specific position.
It is a high value council tax surcharge, already announced, starting in England in 2028 at £2,500 a year above £2m and £7,500 a year above £5m. There are unconfirmed reports that the threshold could be lowered to £1.5m. If your home is worth less than that, it is not expected to affect you.
They could, and they could also rise. Fixed rate pricing follows swap rates rather than the Budget directly, and the next Bank of England decision is on 5 November 2026 with three MPC members having already voted for an increase. Nobody can tell you reliably which way that goes, so I would not build a plan around a forecast.
If you want someone to look at your actual numbers rather than the headlines, that is what we do, and for most of our clients it costs nothing. We are whole of market, so we compare the high street, specialist lenders and broker only deals rather than one bank's range. You can book a free call or ring 03300 432 428.
I will update this guide once the Budget has actually been delivered, so the speculation above can be replaced with facts.
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. This guide is general information, not personal advice. Rates, figures and proposals quoted were correct at the dates and sources named and may change.
