43M +40F married , just bought £810k house with £550k mortgage. Also have rental property worth £250k (mortgage-free), currently getting £1150/month rent.
Paid £40k extra stamp duty on new house for owning 2 properties - can reclaim it if I sell the rental within 3 years.
Paid off the mortgage last year. Now trying to figure out best approach going forward.
Option 1 - Sell the rental:
Reclaim £40k stamp duty
After CGT and costs, roughly £220k proceeds
Put in index funds
Simple, one property, done
Option 2 - Keep as is (personal name):
Lose the £40k stamp duty permanently
Rental income taxed at 40% (higher rate taxpayer)
Could put rental income into pension to save tax for now.
Keep property appreciation
Option 3 - Transfer to Ltd company + remortgage:
Create limited company + transfer from personal to limited company
Reclaim £20k stamp duty (20K SDLT for limited + other fee)
Remortgage at 75% LTV = pull out ~£187k
Invest 70% (£130k) in index funds, keep 30% as buffer
Company structure means mortgage interest fully deductible
Sets me up for buying more BTLs in future
More admin but better tax efficiency long-term
I’m leaning towards option 3 because I’m thinking of building a small property portfolio via company anyway. Makes sense to get the structure set up now rather than keeping this one personal and having mixed ownership later?
Combined household income £150k.
What would you do? Anyone done the Ltd company route and regretted it or glad they did?
Put that into AI and ask it to do a SWOT analysis on each option. You can also give it details of your future plans to build a small property portfolio as well as personal details you wouldn’t want to share here, like your entire financial profile.
FWIW, your plan to do option 1 seems at odds with your plan to build a prop portfolio. Every property you buy for that will hit you with SDLT anyway so…
I would definitely sell. You are getting rent of £13800 pa. By the time you are allow for maintenance, voids and management costs(assuming you value your own time) then income after costs is circa 10k per annum, after tax it is £5800, a net yield of 2.3%. A lot of risk for that sort of return and given you would be saving the 40k stamp duty on your home its a no brainer to sell in my opinion as there are far better investment alternatives.
One thing to clear up first, because it materially affects all three options: selling the rental won’t allow you to reclaim the £40k additional SDLT unless that property was your previous main residence. Selling a buy-to-let doesn’t trigger the refund, so the £40k is already a sunk cost either way.
With that in mind, I’d be cautious about Option 3. Transferring to a Ltd is treated as a market-value sale, so you’re likely looking at CGT personally plus SDLT in the company, and you’d be introducing leverage and higher-rate company borrowing to an asset that’s currently mortgage-free and very low risk. That structure usually only pays off once you’re actually acquiring multiple properties, not in anticipation of doing so.
Option 2 is often underestimated: a mortgage-free rental held personally is simple, resilient, and keeps your options open. Yes, the income is taxed at 40%, but pension contributions can soften that, and you avoid crystallising tax or adding financing risk. You can always start new purchases in a Ltd later if you decide to scale.
Personally, unless you have a near-term pipeline to buy more BTLs, I’d either hold it personally and reassess in a couple of years, or sell only if you genuinely want to reduce property exposure altogether. The biggest regrets I see tend to come from adding complexity too early rather than from paying some higher-rate tax on a clean, unlevered asset.
Were you living in the rental property before you moved to your new residential property? It’s unclear from your post, as you refer to it as a rental property. If you weren’t living in it then even if you sell the rental property, it won’t entitle you to a refund of the second home SDLT.
You would have to sell the house that you previously owned and lived in, in order to be entitled to a refund
Only you can decide how much risk and effort you want for how much reward
Option 1 isn’t terribly consistent with building up portfolio of BTLs.
Net income from BTL isn’t better than a high interest savings account but that’s not the reason to be doing it. If income from existing capital is all you care about then savings/bonds may be better. BTL is about getting income and capital growth too.
If you are relatively new to it there’s def something to be said for trying the rental personally for a couple of years then deciding if want to expand and/or move to Ltd co, as you seem uncertain
A portfolio of BTLs - think what sort of properties and tenants (yields are higher for studios and 1 bed flats but higher turnover; students or families? Commuters?) and what sort of management (diy or full service from an agent?). Then you can decide if your current rental fits what you are planning in terms of location, type of tenant, type of property
Without being morbid, have you thought about inheritance tax liabilities should something happen to both you and your partner (plane crashes do happen unfortunately)
I left it too late , when I spoke to HRMC advisor , he said , rental should have been my main residence in last 3yr , so that only leaves 4-5 months max now, I am leaning to BTL, 4-5 months to get tenant noticed, listed, find buyer, closing within that duration will be tight vs BTL.
rental in question was my main house before I lived there for 9yr before moving out into rental myself for 2.5yr and then buying 2nd house which trigged additional SLDT.
HRMC advisor sell I have appox 5 months to dispose, I am leaning towards moving it to LTD company