McDonnell believes his house, a listed building in Belfast’s upmarket Derryvolgie Avenue, is overvalued by about £100,000 and is appealing against the valuation.
“When I bought this house, the place was derelict; there was an old lady living in it, and it was falling down around her,” he said. “I had to outbid three developers who wanted it for 12 or 14 apartments.
“It cost me £500,000 and I’ve spent another £250,000 bringing it up to standard, I am mortgaged up to the hilt and it still needs about another £100,000. I feel genuinely aggrieved that after all the effort we are now being penalised for saving the bloody place.”
McDonnell has the most valuable house of a selection of senior Northern Ireland politicians surveyed by The Sunday Times last week.
“It proves the Unionists haven’t got all the big houses; we Taigs are moving up,” he joked.
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The SDLP MP’s house valuation pipped that of Robert McCartney, the leader of the UK Unionist party and a senior lawyer, whose Holywood home is worth £1m.
The value of all homes in Northern Ireland has become available on the Valuation and Lands Agency’s website following the introduction of a rating regime designed to raise more finance for local services.
Other leading politicians have also seen their rates bills increase. Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP MP for Lagan Valley, has a home valued at £425,000. He comes in ahead of party leader Ian Paisley, whose home is valued at £292,500 and deputy leader Peter Robinson (£400,000).
Eric Cairns, who owns a chain of estate agents in the province, believes many properties are undervalued by the Valuation Agency. “One friend of mine had his home valued at £1m but I could sell it for £2.5m in the morning,” he said.
Cairns suspects that rates will increase sharply in the coming years as London attempts to pass responsibility for expenditure from central government to Northern Ireland’s seven new “super councils”.
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“As soon as the government applies the real capital value, the rates will head north,” he said.