Summer Budget 2015 – Landlords Reactions

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Shine" at "04/09/2015 - 17:59":

Apparently HMRC has no idea how many properties are owned by incorporated vs non-incorporated landlords in the UK. Thus the Government has announced this without having the foggiest idea how many households it will affect.

The only thing it seemed to be interested in was the amount of possible revenue it could bring in. And that was very crudely and simplistically worked out. It would be good if someone here had the expertise to improve on the Government's figures. Considering they were so crap I think it is within the abilities of some individuals here to give us a better 'guesstimate.'

I also wonder if the information on the incorporated vs non-incorporated properties or a good guess at it is available anywhere. I don't know any landlords who are incorporated; they are all private landlords, but then I don't know many landlords per se (apart from on here). So from my experience I would assume most of us are private, but that's scarcely scientific. Any ideas anyone? (knowledge is power)

Reply to the comment left by "Ros ." at "04/09/2015 - 18:14":

The reply I received from HMRC re the split of individual v incorporated landlords was based on my question which also asked about the geographical split. It said that they don't have the figures by region. It also stated that the only info they have from the tax returns is how many properties a landlord has. It was not clear as to whether that was all landlords or just individuals.

I have forwarded the reply to Mark.

I do know of a very large incorporated landlord locally who must have well over 1000 properties, he houses mainly DSS, and probably could take up the slack if other DSS landlords in the area sold up.

Reply to the comment left by "Ros ." at "04/09/2015 - 18:14":

HMRC should have some idea as it asks how many properties you own on your annual tax return although since HMRC also claim that less than 50% of landlords are declaring their BTL's i suppose the figures if collated would not be exactly accurate!!

Most Estate are worried & they don't want to raise the issues as they don't want to lose business and/or do not have the expertise to understand the consequences to the landlords.

I can say that besides the bodies like Peabody trust & the like most of the properties are owned by private landlords. For reasons.

a) The landlords are small landlords who had bought the properties as their pension.
b) Most lenders do not have products for Ltd companies.
c) Do not have expertise & can afford to comply with the adult, annual return etc.

Reply to the comment left by "ray selley" at "04/09/2015 - 18:27":

@Ray

If HMRC have the number of private Landlords and the number of properties each Landlords has. It also has the number of Landlords who declare mortgage costs as this is broken out on Self Assessment Tax Returns, and how Landlords pay Higher rate tax.
Given it knows how much finance cost each Landlords enters on their SA Tax Return they could also work how many basic rate taxpayers will suddenly be deemed to higher rate tax payers.

Sounds like a pretty good candidate for a FoI request unless some else has asked these questions already.
From this using the assumed 4m PRS houses, it should be possible to work out how many properties are held by incorporated Landlords.

Reply to the comment left by "Ros ." at "04/09/2015 - 18:14":

As I’ve said before, and also to David Gauke when met him a week or so ago, the different treatment between incorp and non-incorp is something we / they need to consider. Many of the worst affected private LLs will have accountants, so many will have taken advice on whether to buy using another name (ltd company which could be created on the internet in minutes, not hours) or not.

If Clause 24 gets ratified in the Finance Bill by Royal Assent, then the Govt need to consider offering an amnesty period for SDLT for the purposes of transferring portfolios to a company. Assuming they are as concerned about ‘creating a level playing field’ as they say they are?

Reply to the comment left by "Barry Fitzpatrick" at "04/09/2015 - 18:45":

Hi Barry. Yes, someone who hasn't yet sent in a Freedom of Information request could do this. They don't like it if you send in more than one really, so ideally it should be someone who hasn't yet. It is very easy to do. If we have a volunteer to do it, we can give them the details. Takes a few minutes.

@Ros,

I haven't done one yet. So let me have the details and I'll get one off over the weekend.

3.4 Record keeping
As for any other business, a landlord is required to maintain complete records of all expenses incurred and income
received from the let property business. There is no specific HMRC guidance on record keeping for landlords,
but the advice on business records for the self-employed applies equally to landlords

Note we are a business for record keeping

The petition has just topped 25,000 signatures 🙂

If we do get to 100k signatures we will need an MP to champion our cause in the debate. I can't see many Tories putting their heads above the parapet nor any Labour MPs.

Has anyone written to Douglas Carswell or Nigel Farage, UKIP?