Patrick Paton, of Berwick estate agency Paton and Co, says more and more high-earning professionals have been moving their families “kit and caboodle” to the area in the past five years.
“People are uncomfortable with the Scottish government and they want to be south of the border to protect their family interests,” he says. “If you earned about £120,000, you would pay an additional £5,000 extra in tax a year in Scotland. That starts adding up over 25 years or so.”
Castle Street in Norham, once populated by local salmon fishermen, has become chock full of “lawyers and accountants”. “We’ve started calling it ‘professional street’,” Paton says.
Income tax is a big revenue-raiser for Scotland. In the 2025-26 tax year, it generated some £21bn – equivalent to 73pc of its total devolved tax take – making it an essential part of the SNP’s ability to carry out its policies.
The party argues that “by asking those with the broadest shoulders to pay a little bit more”, it has been able to deliver a range of benefits not available in other parts of the UK, such as free prescriptions and university tuition.
However, avoiding Scotland’s higher rates by moving a main residence to England is relatively simple, providing the move ticks HMRC’s boxes, according to tax expert Robert Salter, at Blick Rothenberg.
“Having a property on the English side of the border could be a part of that process of breaking Scottish residency. But there has to be proper substance to that move,” he says.
“It isn’t possible to simply buy a second home in Berwick-upon-Tweed or any other Northumbrian or Cumbrian town, to say that you are non-resident in Scotland for tax purposes.”
