Ricky Gervais has found a buyer for his £2.95 million riverside home in Buckinghamshire just days after putting it on the market, as he prepares to marry his partner of 44 years, Jane Fallon.
The 65-year-old comedian and actor bought the Marlow property for £2.75 million in 2014, describing it as his “little country retreat”. He mainly lives at a £14.75 million nine-bedroom mansion in Hampstead, north-west London.
The sale comes after a lengthy planning battle over the four-bedroom house, which dates back to the 1920s. Mr Gervais secured permission this year to demolish it and build a new mansion in its place, but has now opted to sell.
The decision is likely to leave him facing a financial loss once stamp duty, legal fees, estate agent costs and spending on architects and consultants are taken into account. He paid seven per cent stamp duty when he bought the property.
Ricky Gervais’s Marlow property had planning permission
The approved plans would have allowed the existing house to be replaced with a substantial four-bedroom home featuring an entrance hall, gym, drawing room, reading area, lift and a main bedroom with a terrace overlooking the tennis court and pond.
The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead granted permission after an initial proposal for a neo-Georgian mansion was rejected. The earlier plans were found not to meet local and national guidelines, while the estate had flooded five times since 1947.
The approved scheme includes a 26ft-wide flood buffer zone along the River Thames and would raise the ground floor by three feet. A special flood permit would also be required.
The site has a private mooring, tennis court and extensive grounds. Estate agents Savills describe the existing property as “a detached family home in an outstanding position” with generous parking.
The listing says buyers can either live in the current house or rebuild under the planning consent. It describes the property as being in “a wonderfully private and secluded setting” on the banks of the Thames.
Any buyer choosing to build could face two years of construction, while plans are also in place for a house on an adjoining empty plot.
The redevelopment would require measures to protect bats. A survey recorded 333 soprano pipistrelle bats emerging from the house in 2023, while the local authority said a peak of 276 were seen in 2025.
Mr Gervais promised to create a bat loft in the garage and install two bat boxes in nearby trees. He would also need a licence from Natural England.
Gervais and Fallon plan to marry
Mr Gervais and Ms Fallon, also 65, have been together for more than four decades but have previously said they saw little point in marriage.
He revealed last month that they intended to wed to avoid a potentially substantial inheritance tax bill when one of them dies. The announcement came five months after Ms Fallon disclosed that she had breast cancer.
Speaking about the financial reason for marrying, Mr Gervais said: “It is. And that will be the reason I marry. But if it wasn’t for that… why? It’s mad.”
He added: “How more married can you be? We share all our money, we’ve been living together for 40 years. Some marriages don’t last a year.”
Unmarried couples do not receive the exemption allowing an estate to pass to a surviving husband, wife or civil partner free of inheritance tax. Tax is charged at 40 per cent above the £325,000 tax-free threshold.
The arrangement could affect Mr Gervais’s estimated £53 million fortune, which includes properties in London and New York as well as the Buckinghamshire home.
