Ricky Gervais has placed his riverside home in Marlow on the market for £2.95 million, shortly after revealing plans to marry his long-term partner Jane Fallon partly to protect their wealth from inheritance tax.
The four-bedroom property, which the comedian bought for £2.75 million in 2014, is being marketed by Savills as a rare opportunity to own a detached house on the River Thames with its own mooring, tennis court and extensive gardens. It was added to property listings on September 3, 2026. ([zoopla.co.uk](https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/74131238/?utm_source=openai))
The sale comes after Gervais, 65, secured planning permission to demolish the existing 1920s house and replace it with a much larger neo-Georgian-style mansion, following a lengthy dispute with the local authority.
A buyer could either continue living in the existing 3,234 sq ft home or proceed with the approved redevelopment. The plans include a four-bedroom house with an entrance hall, gym, drawing room, reading area, lift and a main bedroom opening on to a terrace overlooking the tennis court and pond.
Riverside home has flooded several times
Planning documents submitted during the application stated that the site had flooded at least five times since 1947. Images included in the paperwork showed the entrance, garage and rear garden under water during flooding in 2024.
The revised scheme was approved by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in April, after an earlier version was rejected in 2024. The consent requires a 26ft-wide flood buffer along the Thames and a ground floor raised by 3ft.
Despite the history of flooding, the estate agents’ particulars describe the property as being in “an outstanding position”, with generous parking and a “wonderfully private and secluded setting”. The listing also highlights riverside lawns, mature trees, an artificial-grass tennis court and views across the water towards Lock Island.
Savills said the property offered “an extraordinary opportunity to acquire a house on the river in Marlow with a private mooring”, adding that it could be enjoyed as it stands or rebuilt with full planning consent already in place. ([zoopla.co.uk](https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/74131238/?utm_source=openai))
Gervais is understood to spend most of his time at his nine-bedroom mansion in Hampstead, north-west London, which is valued at about £14.75 million. He also owns two flats in New York.
The comedian’s decision to sell the Marlow property follows his recent admission that he intends to marry Fallon after more than four decades together. The couple met while studying at University College London in 1982 and began living together two years later.
For years, they have said they saw no need to marry or have children. Gervais once argued that there was no reason to wed “before the eyes of God as there is no God”, while describing their relationship as a “fake marriage” that had lasted longer than many real ones.
Speaking to Saga magazine, he said inheritance tax had changed his mind. “It is. And that will be the reason I marry,” he said when asked whether tax was a good reason to get married. “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.”
Under UK inheritance tax rules, assets passed between married couples or civil partners are generally exempt from the tax. Unmarried partners do not receive the same automatic exemption, meaning estates can face a 40 per cent charge above the relevant tax-free threshold.
Fallon, also 65, revealed in March that she had been diagnosed with an early stage of breast cancer after a routine mammogram. She subsequently underwent surgery, describing the experience as “a lot”.
A tax expert quoted in reports about the couple’s finances said that marriage could make significant financial sense for a wealthy couple, while the sale of the Marlow property might indicate an effort to simplify Gervais’s portfolio.
