Angela Rayner made several renovations to her former council house which could offset her capital gains bill, reports have suggested.
The deputy Labour leader enlarged her kitchen, installed a new fireplace and replaced windows in refurbishments, planning documents obtained by a newspaper allegedly show.
The current owners of the house, who believe she did live there, still receive her post nearly a decade after she left.
Planning applications unearthed show that enhancements included a “new opening to enlarge [the] kitchen” as well as a “new replacement door and window” and the installation of a gas fire.
The resident stressed that he could not confirm details of Rayner’s living arrangements because he purchased the property from different occupants in 2019, who bought it from the Labour MP four years earlier.
He said: “She was obviously registered to this address, she lived here, we still receive some of her post.
“People knew that she lived here, there’s no denying that, [but] other people might say otherwise.”
Some neighbours disputed that she lived there after marrying Mark Rayner in 2010.
Ms Rayner has faced scrutiny about whether she paid the right amount of tax on the 2015 sale of her Stockport council house because of confusion over whether it was her principal residence.
But there is confusion over whether Ms Rayner mainly lived at her then-husband’s home about a mile away in Lowndes Lane, where her three children were also based.
Some also said her brother lived at her home under scrutiny.
Ms Rayner has said she will “do the right thing and step down” if she is found to have committed a crime in relation to her living situation but remains confident she has followed the law at all times.
Officers are investigating whether Labour’s deputy leader broke electoral law after Tory allegations that she may have given false information about her main residence.
A Labour spokesperson said: “Angela has always made clear she also spent time at her husband’s property when they had children and got married, as he did at hers.
“The house she owned remained her main home.
“Angela looks forward to sitting down with the appropriate authorities, including the police and HMRC, to set out the facts and draw a line under this matter.”
