George Osborne
George Osborne

Chancellor George Osborne made a profit of around £400,000 after selling his constituency home and was able to keep all the proceeds for himself, even though the property was part-funded by the taxpayer.

Osborne bought his second home near Macclesfield, Cheshire for £445,000 a year before he was elected MP for Tatton in 2001, according to the Daily Mirror.

Using his expenses, Osborne claimed up to £1,900 a month in interest payments on the mortgage for the Harrop Fold Farm property.

Osborne then sold the home in January, when it looked like he might lose his seat due to constituency boundary changes, for an estimated £800,000 to £900,000, without even putting the property on the market.

Osborne stopped claiming expenses on the Cheshire home in the summer of 2010, just before new rules regarding expenses claims were introduced in the wake of the 2009 scandal which rocked Parliament.

Because he stopped claiming prior to the new rules, he did not have to repay any gain to the authorities when he sold his home earlier this year.

The Chancellor originally intended to rent out the property, but ended up selling after a local couple made an offer.

A neighbour said: "What he was doing was that he put it out to rent because he didn't want it going on the open market.

"Fortunately for him these two people are local. They walked past it and always admired it.

"When they saw it up for rent, they wanted to rent it but George wanted to sell. So they managed to buy it without it going on the open market."

Labour MP John Mann said: "People across the country have been forced to bear the brunt of his economic failures and brutal cuts. They will be disgusted by George Osborne's greed."

Osborne, who has a trust fund worth an estimated £4m, was ordered to pay back £1,666 in 2010 after it emerged he had breached expenses rules. He recently received further criticism by trying to take a first-class train journey with a standard-class ticket.

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