Unfortunately nobody in gov cares about landlords. We’re all seen as fat cats that just wait for the money to roll in. Gov seem determined to tax & regulate the PRS out of existence. There’s so much wrong with the system, but nobody will listen to landlords. I mean jeez, if you wanna know about something, you ask a professional, right? I’ve offered my services to my MP, I didn’t even get a no thanks reply. My conclusion is that they clearly don’t wanna know. They aren’t saying it, but they don’t want us, there can’t be another explanation. It’s arguable that us landlords are the ones being discriminated against! We have to pay 3% more for property, we can’t claim tax relief on our main cost if we earn over the threshold (mortgages), we have to do the job of immigration officers (for no reward), and then when we want to get rent to pay the higher mortgage rates we have to shoulder, it’s us that are the bad guys. Giving Shelter £20m a year isn’t helping. It’s become the anti landlord lobbying arm of gov. What did we do to deserve this?
on the Tax side, i am curious to ask, are we able to contribute more in pension so to lower down the taxable income and then make the taxable rental income just below the higher rate tax is that still doable? assuming the rental income is not 50K itself.
Now that’s beyond me I’m afraid. This is the point that I hand things over to my accountants & financial advisors to work it out. I’d bet that HMRC have it covered so there’s no work around or loophole though. They usually have!
Oh, they want us alright, because they don’t want the management hassle or to build anymore social housing. They just want to control us as if we were serving their needs, which we are.
I just wish they would contract to run my properties, as they do in some London boroughs, with guaranteed rental income. Nice work if you can get it…
I think what they really want is build to let over buy to let. That way, renters are piled up on small parcels of land. This means a small number of companies collect lots of money & therefore are more visible as they have to pay taxes at a corporate level. The cost of collecting taxes is therefore lowered, which is attractive to gov, despite the corporations being efficient enough to find ways to lower their tax burden. I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it’s the most logical explanation for this in depth meddling in a small trader sector like ours.
Not sure if I fancy having the whole portfolio controlled by one client. I’d be concerned that the client over the market would dictate the price. In theory, a nice idea though. I’ve actually been banging on about this for a while though. See if this floats for you. Imagine the benefits agency as a legal guarantor. Same rights & limitations as a private guarantor, same responsibilities too. And more importantly, same duty to defend in a court if they don’t pay. I love the idea. Theres no reason why it can’t happen, but it won’t, because this transfers a huge burden of potential debt to the benefits agency.