You don't pay stamp duty if you structure it correctly. The trick is to not buy the title, but instead buy the holding company that holds the title. Buying a company also incurs stamp duty, but it's readily dodged by declaring the purchased holding company an investment and being domiciled offshore, at which point no stamp duty is due, and any capital gains can be deferred until the point of sale/realisation.

Re: council tax - again, you don't pay this if you declare the property unoccupied, or have the property zoned such that it's not applicable. This is often achieved by having the holding company be owned by a charitable trust, who operate the home as "offices", which would have business rates applicable, but as a charity they're reduced by a minimum of 80% and with an appropriate backhander, to 100%. The other option commonly followed is to make the chain of ownership/domicile so insanely complex that the authorities don't bother/can't follow the trail. Property owned by a trust owned by a charity owned by a holding company owned by a trust owned by... you get the picture.

In reality, plutarchs who manage property portfolios in the UK pay no tax whatsoever more often than not, so the $3k per year is a bit of a misnomer.