On a London sole agency instruction, you are most likely to be quoted 1.5% plus VAT. Add the VAT and that is 1.8% of your sale price, so on the average London home at £553,870 your commission is about £9,970. The percentage comes from Propelr's London fee guide, updated 18 March 2026. The price is the London average for June 2026 in HM Land Registry's UK House Price Index.
In London the pound figure is the one that hurts, so what follows is in pounds. Your borough is quoted differently from the next one for a reason, there is a number worth negotiating towards, and there is one more question worth settling before you sign: whether any of your commission comes back through the tax system.
Your London fee, at a glance
- London sole agency fee: 1.5% plus VAT, which is 1.8% including VAT, on a standard high street instruction (Propelr, March 2026).
- What that costs you: about £9,970 on the average London home of £553,870 (HM Land Registry, June 2026).
- National comparison: 1.42% including VAT as a UK average on the same sole agency basis (HomeOwners Alliance).
- Multi-agency: 3% to 3.6% including VAT, if you instruct more than one agent at the same time.
- Legal cap on the fee: none. The rules control what the agent must tell you, not what they can charge.
- Tax: nothing back if it was your only home, roughly a quarter back if it was let or a second home taxed at 24%.
Free Capital Gains Tax tool
Estimate the CGT on your sale
Our interactive tool is built for a larger screen. Tell us your numbers and a specialist will send your figure and the next sensible step, with no obligation.
What do London estate agents actually charge in 2026?
Your quote will almost always be a percentage of the sale price, and it will almost always be given plus VAT. Add the VAT and 1.5% becomes 1.8%, which is the London sole agency norm in the most recently updated London guide, published in March 2026. London runs about a quarter higher than the national picture: the HomeOwners Alliance puts the UK average at 1.42% including VAT, and the same London guide gives 1.44% including VAT as its own national comparison.
Here is what the London norm costs across the price bands, with the average London home marked.
| Your sale price | Typical London sole agency fee | Commission you pay |
|---|---|---|
| £300,000 | 1.8% including VAT | £5,400 |
| £500,000 | 1.8% including VAT | £9,000 |
| £553,870 (London average, June 2026) | 1.8% including VAT | about £9,970 |
| £750,000 | 1.8% including VAT | £13,500 |
| £1,000,000 | 1.8% including VAT | £18,000 |
| £1,500,000 | 1.8% including VAT | £27,000 |
| Plus conveyancing, EPC and removals | about £1,500 to £3,000 on top | a London sale at the average lands near £12,000 all in |
One thing to hold in mind. That 1.8% is a published guide figure for London sole agency, not a record of what London sellers actually paid, because nobody publishes verified completion averages. Treat any borough-level average you read as a starting point rather than a quote. For the national picture rather than the London one, see how much estate agents charge to sell a house.
Why is the percentage lower in prime London when the fee is bigger?
Because selling a £1.5 million house is not five times the work of selling a £300,000 one. Agents at the top of the market compete on the percentage, and they can afford to. On the borough figures below, 1.44% including VAT on a £1.3 million Kensington and Chelsea home is £18,720, while 2.4% including VAT on a £320,000 Barking and Dagenham home is £7,680. That is the whole mechanism: your percentage falls as your price rises, and your bill goes up anyway.
| What moves your fee | Which way it moves | Typical London effect |
|---|---|---|
| Sole agency or multi-agency | Multi-agency roughly doubles it | 3% to 3.6% including VAT against 1.2% to 1.8% for sole agency |
| Your price band | Higher price, lower percentage, bigger bill | The gap between 1.5% and 1.8% is worth about £1,660 at the London average and £3,000 at £1m |
| Your borough | Prime central lower, outer higher | Kensington and Chelsea 1.2% to 1.5% plus VAT, which is 1.44% to 1.8% including VAT, against Barking and Dagenham at 1.5% to 2.0% plus VAT, or 1.8% to 2.4% including VAT, on one published guide's March 2026 figures |
| Fee model | Fixed fees flatten it, upfront fees shift the risk to you | Compare any fixed fee against the percentage in pounds at your realistic price |
| Marketing package | Premium listings and photography add to it | No reliable London figures are published, so get the amounts in writing |
| Tie-in and notice period | Longer tie-in, less leverage for you | The lever agents give up most easily when they will not cut the rate |
Note where that leaves an outer London seller. At 1.8% to 2.4% including VAT, the outer-borough quote sits at or above the London norm rather than below it. Your borough is a reason to push harder, not a reason to accept the number.
What is inside the fee, and what gets charged on top?
A standard London sole agency fee covers your valuation, photographs and floorplan, the portal listings, the viewings and the negotiation through to exchange. Most London agents work on a no sale, no fee basis, so if your sale never happens you owe nothing.
What sits outside the percentage varies far more than the percentage itself. Premium portal listings, upgraded photography and video tours are charged separately by some agents and absorbed by others. So is an Energy Performance Certificate, if you do not already hold a valid one. So is a withdrawal fee if you take your property off the market. No source publishes reliable London amounts for any of these, so any figure you see quoted is illustrative at best. Ask for the real amounts in writing before you sign.
The one thing to insist on is a single total. The price rules that apply to agents require the total price, not a headline that leaves out a cost you will unavoidably pay, and VAT is exactly such a cost. Ask for the fee as a percentage including VAT, and as a pound figure at the price you expect to achieve rather than at your asking price.
What does a realistic negotiation look like in London?
Aim to move a 1.8% inclusive quote down to about 1.5% inclusive. On the average London home that saves you around £1,660, and at £1 million it saves you £3,000. Agents open at the top of their range and expect you to push back, so your first quote is rarely the real one.
Four things work, in the order you should use them. Ask three agents to value and quote, and make one of them an independent who only covers your postcode. Put the cheapest number to the other two and say it out loud. Ask for a sliding scale that pays the agent more for beating a target price, which puts them on your side of the table rather than on the side of a fast sale. If the rate will not move, take the tie-in and notice periods instead, because those cost the agent something real and cost you nothing.
Two related reads if you are weighing the alternatives: the cheapest estate agent fee models and how online agents price the same job.
Estimate the CGT on your sale
Skip the spreadsheet. Tell us about your situation and a specialist will review your position and the next sensible step, with no obligation.
Is there a cap on estate agent fees?
No. There is no legal maximum on estate agent commission in England and Wales. Any agent may charge whatever the market will bear. If you have been quoted 2.4% in an outer borough, that is not unlawful. It is simply a quote you should not accept without testing it against two others.
What the law does instead is control disclosure. Before you sign, your agent must tell you three things:
- When the commission becomes payable.
- The amount, or the method used to calculate it.
- Any other payments or charges you will face.
If your agent fails to do that, the agreement is not enforceable against you unless they go to court. The court can then reduce or discharge what you owe, to reflect the prejudice you suffered. That is a real protection, and it is why your agreement should never be a handshake.
Two more protections are worth knowing. Every agent selling homes must belong to an approved redress scheme, and the penalty for trading without membership is £1,000, so ask which scheme yours belongs to. The price rules that replaced the old consumer protection regulations in April 2025 also make it an offence to leave out material information. That includes the total price of a service.
Can you end up paying two agents on one sale?
You can, and London is where it happens most, because multi-agency is more common here than anywhere else in the country. It is quoted at around 3% to 3.6% including VAT, roughly double sole agency. The higher fee is what you pay for several agents chasing the same buyer.
The commission belongs to the agent who was the effective cause of your sale, so in principle you pay only one of them. Disputes arise where two agents claim to have introduced the same buyer, and where you signed sole selling rights rather than sole agency. Those two phrases sound alike and are not: sole selling rights can make the fee payable even where you found your buyer yourself. Check which one is in front of you before you sign, and see estate agent contract tie-in periods for what the clauses commit you to.
What is the commission worth back against capital gains tax?
In London this is worth thousands, so it is worth two minutes. If the property was your only or main home throughout, private residence relief covers your gain. There is no tax to reduce, so the commission is simply money gone. It is different if the property was let, a second home, a pied-a-terre, or a former home you let for part of the time you owned it. Then you have a taxable gain, and your agent's commission is an allowable cost of making the sale that comes straight off it.
Worked through at the London average: commission of about £9,970 on a £553,870 sale cuts your taxable gain by the same £9,970. At the higher residential rate of 24%, that is about £2,393 less tax, so the real cost of your fee is around £7,577.
| Sale price and commission | If it was your only or main home | If it was let or a second home, taxed at 24% |
|---|---|---|
| £553,870, commission about £9,970 | £9,970, none of it recoverable | about £7,577, after £2,393 off your tax bill |
| £1,000,000, commission £18,000 | £18,000, none of it recoverable | £13,680, after £4,320 off your tax bill |
Three things decide how that arithmetic lands. You deduct the fee including VAT, because as a private seller you cannot reclaim the VAT anywhere. The list of deductible selling costs is a closed one. Your agent's commission, your conveyancer's fee and advertising to find a buyer all count. Your own time, travel, storage, staging and removals do not, and nor does mortgage interest or an early repayment charge. And if part of your gain falls in the basic rate band, the relief on that part is 18% rather than 24%.
For the mechanics rather than the fee, start with capital gains tax on a second home sale.
Do you have to report the sale within 60 days?
Only where tax is actually due, so a sale of your only or main home usually needs no return at all. Where tax is due, you report the sale and pay within 60 days of completion, and the tax year your gain belongs to is fixed instead by the day you exchange contracts. A March exchange with a May completion puts your gain in the earlier tax year and starts the clock in the later one. The payment deadlines guide has the dates.
What should you do next?
Ask for every quote including VAT and as a pound figure at the price you expect to achieve, then push the best one towards 1.5% inclusive and check the tie-in. Both levers are worth having, and they are not worth the same. Moving a 1.8% quote to 1.5% saves you about £1,660 on the average London home. On a taxable sale you keep about £1,260 of that, because the relief you lose on the smaller fee hands roughly a quarter of the saving back. Negotiating still wins; it just wins by less than the headline. Then put your numbers into the cost of selling calculator. It gives you the full bill for your sale, commission, conveyancing and the rest, in under 60 seconds. It also flags the tax where the property was not your only home. For the whole picture rather than the agent's slice of it, see the cost of selling a property. If you are buying as well as selling, the cost of moving house adds the other end of your chain.