Summer Budget 2015 – Landlords Reactions

Reply to the comment left by "Roger Rabbit" at "13/09/2015 - 01:33":

A fixed levy per property would become known as a "let property tax" or similar and added to rent and shown as such in the same way IPT and APD are.

I'm wondering if anyone has the energy to give the petition a bit of a push? Any ideas would be welcome.

I tried the DPS and spareroom in the early days. The most recent email I had from the DPS stated they would be sending out their newsletter mid-September adding:

'As we administer The DPS on behalf of the DCLG, our stance remains that we are afraid we are unable to contact Landlords on our database in relation to the petition. However, I can confirm in next month’s issue of ‘Open House’ we will make reference to this intended legislative change, informing Landlords of where they can find further information.'

So, I don't know what that means and where they will refer them - but I don't expect they'll send them here!

Also re spareroom, just to repeat what they said:

'We're planning to draft a newsletter about the changes to send to our landlords. We won't go as far as emailing everyone and asking them to sign the petition, as we have a policy of not endorsing third party petitions, but we'll certainly flag this up and make sure landlords know what's going on.'

I'm afraid both of them will probably repeat the underplaying gobbledegook as usual. If anyone receives these newsletters in the next few days can they post the contents and/or put a link on here? I just checked the spareroom blog - something I didn't know existed and they clearly saw the Budget as A GOOD THING because of the increased allowance for the rent a room scheme - they thanked their pals at Shelter, Generation Rent and Sarah Beeny - for backing THEIR PETITION. So, they're really independent and can't link people to Ruhal's petition, but they can set up their own for one category of landlord - the 'live-in one.'

Why it's so great to live in with owners - and the owner should be rewarded and helped with this - rather than share with fellow tenants or live as a family unit and the owner should be punished for providing this kind of property is another of these conundrums we face in the twilight zone.
Answers on a postcard.

PS. Sorry for just going all negative - I am still interested in ideas regarding who we can email/contact to give the petition a little push.

Ros, I've never won any prizes for being nice and believe that daft proposals need to be identified as such. They are counter productive and divert effort from the main cause. If anyone comes up with a sensible idea for raising extra tax it is likely to be adopted in addition to the existing proposals, not instead of them, so my advice would be to keep quiet. In any event it gives the impression of grasping at straws.

I have become convinced that the budget proposals are not so much about raising tax as making the highly leveraged business model no longer viable. The only way of countering this is to convince the Chancellor that his plans will (a) not have the desired effect of stabilising the market and reducing the threat identified by the Bank of England (I am sure that this is the true reason for the proposals despite the public relations exercise giving various spurious justifications), (b) reduce or eliminate investment in new build or renovation by private landlords (c) make it impossible for developers to raise sufficient finance in future (d) impose inflationary pressure on rents (e) result in multiple evictions where the market will not stand rent increases sufficient to allow landlords to remain solvent, causing immense problems for Local Authorities having to deal with homelessness and so on.

Reply to the comment left by "Seething Landlord" at "13/09/2015 - 14:43":

Hi Seething Landlord. I agree with practically everything you say. Regarding (a) I think we all agree the measure itself will destabilise the housing market - the very thing the BoE wanted to prevent. It will also bring most PRS expansion to an abrupt halt - and as I said earlier I think we should really focus on this point, as there are already indications of a halt in construction.

The Daily Mail, 2 days ago:
'Construction output in the UK unexpectedly slowed in July driven by the largest annual fall in housebuilding in more than two years, official data revealed today.

The 1.0 per cent fall, which reversed a 0.9 per cent rise in June, surprised economists' who had forecast a 0.5 per cent increase.

Year-on-year the figures from the Office of National Statistics showed a 0.7 per cent fall, again disappointing economists' forecasts for a 0.6 per cent rise.

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-3230570/UK-construction-output-sees-shock-fall-July-driven-largest-annual-drop-housebuilding-2013.html#ixzz3lcuXrYFZ
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Reply to the comment left by "Saeef Khan" at "13/09/2015 - 13:57":

Ah, that makes sense. So the NLA are trying to say that these are the people that should be having the "interest relief restriction" applied to because their mortgage is on a par with other home owners residential mortgage whom do not get the interest relief. In other words they don't have a "true BTL"

I think we need to think about targeting some high profile celebrities who are involved in property in some way to endorse the petition via Facebook and Twitter. If some of these guys and girls have thousands of followers each a small proportion of sign ups will help massively. I'm thinking:

Sarah Beeny
Kirsty Alsop
Phil spencer
Duncan bannatyne (used to be a big landlord)
Homes under the hammer duo
Etc etc

What do people think? And how could we get them on board?

Manchester Landlord: Twitter and other social media sites do seem to be extremely influential, but If you approach Kirstie Allsopp at least do her the courtesy of getting her name right. Addressing her as Kirsty Alsop is likely to get her back up I would imagine, rather than recruiting her to our cause.

Reply to the comment left by "Manchester Landlord" at "13/09/2015 - 15:38":

Post on their Facebook page or send them a message. The post could be similar to the one posted earlier by Mark Alexander (see quite a few pages back earlier this morning).

I can't keep track of Martin and Co - they are constantly yo-yoing. In their latest email they're back on our side it seems, with regard to the petition, the tax grab itself and also a piece on rent arrears and damage to combat Shelter's propaganda.

These are some of the links (sorry they're a bit long and messy - you should be able to copy them into your browsers):

http://www.martinco.com/news/2015/09/07/buy-to-let-tax-protest-petition-tops-25000-signatures/?utm_campaign=mac-news-section&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=21967882&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8evzhWbZmcCB3SImahwByNK3guhDMe4Co0Go_vkSNpfodeT0LO1iXEmEIcXn1gJxt4RDXedAicCjRbnui_zTPdDclfpg&_hsmi=21967882#.VfXLZpfcB68

http://www.martinco.com/news/2015/09/10/mps-want-agents-and-landlords-views-on-buy-to-let-taxes/?utm_campaign=mac-news-section&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=21967882&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9JKMdHSqXcUChj8StZlUOnmOzldLeSatxsInwzJ4A5qx5kV32yygDYIdj4a8lJaexcJGugI2E2EaTrqh1cQ8c4tE_HWQ&_hsmi=21967882#.VfXLopfcB68

http://www.martinco.com/news/2015/09/07/landlords-lose-9-9-billion-to-rent-arrears-and-damage-every-year/?utm_campaign=mac-news-section&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=21967882&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8-2HIz2Dw8mlgmdXqKzcPft48685c8zvYMhGBiLcoWImZ9ynaUXB3I91L51bQSRgYLJzEin2ogRAWk2QbnLhQiY8cGfg&_hsmi=21967882#.VfXLxJfcB68

We have had some massive blip in petition signatures since Telegraph articles, as signatures risen from 120000 to whooping 28000. (in the course for just 2 weeks)

However, recently rate of rise has somewhat subdued, I can only think that, rate of rise will rise once again once we get another article.

Does anyone know, when next article is due for publication?