‘This has got nothing to do with Brexit – this is about stamp duty,’ says Mark McAndrew, cutting through the hype and the headlines. Strutt & Parker’s Mayfair-based senior director for national estates tells Spear’s the property market is feeling the ‘hard hit’ of George Osborne’s 2014 tax reforms.

Jonathan Harington’s experience is unrivalled: he has been a buying agent since 1986 and single-handedly created the purchasing arms of Lane Fox (now Strutt & Parker) and Knight Frank.

‘We are one of very few firms who cover both London and the country, and cover it well,’ says Ed Heaton, co-founder and managing director of Heaton & Partners. With one office in Berkshire and another in Knightsbridge, Heaton explains: ‘Our cars almost become a mobile property shop. We’ll be bombing up and down the country, on the phone the whole time.’

Crispin Holborow focuses on providing a versatile service at the very top end of the country market: ‘I cross over between country houses and estates, which no one else does.’