Summer Budget 2015 – Landlords Reactions

Personal former aid and friend to the vulture ( GO ) is now the head of a large private hedge fund is on bbc wonder if he's one of the cronies who wants to invest in the PRS

The only issue I can see for existing landlords is that, when we come to sell the properties, demand for BTL properties will decline and if BTL buyer is buying the property he/she would like to see that cost of extra stamp duty is reflected in buying price.

Consequently that'll be passed to the seller.

The ones I am selling are the larger 3 bed semis in decent areas that will attract first time buyers and keep the smaller stuff that will pay there way

Might have already been mentioned, I sure I've read it some where. What would happen if all landlords issued a letter to their tenants at the same time stating that they will soon be given notices due to the tax changes, the only way to have a hope of reversing this is write to their MP, perhaps with the benefit of a pro former.

I know it sounds a bit like a protest or Landlord Strike action however that is all I can see that would work to make the government listen and actually take notice.

Reply to the comment left by "Saeef Khan" at "25/11/2015 - 14:09":

I agree I didn't hear anything either.

I am already planning that in the new year two letters one stating the reasons for selling and one for rent increases urging them to contact the council and there MP

Reply to the comment left by "NW Landlord" at "25/11/2015 - 14:28":

A combined effort by many landlords would be the only way to make it work. One landlord with a handful of properties is barely going to make a dent on the governments resolve.

This is the extract from the Spending Review document:

'Higher rates of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) will be charged on purchases of additional residential properties, such as buy to let properties and second homes, with effect from 1 April 2016.

The higher rates will be 3 percentage points above the current SDLT rates. The government will use some of the additional
tax collected to provide £60 million for communities in England where the impact of second homes is particularly acute. The tax receipts will help towards doubling the affordable housing budget. This will help first time buyers.'

I take this to mean that even the cheap houses, under £125,000, will now have SDLT of 3%, instead of 0%.

GO then makes the false assumption that this will automatically bring in massive amounts of money. In fact, it will definitely affect landlords' decisions to delay selling. As the OBR is quoted in the same document saying house prices will increase by 5% per annum for the next 5 years, if we all blindly believe these predictions, then we will delay where we can.

If his real aim was to get tenanted properties redistributed to OOs, then this is the wrong way to go about it. The carrot would have been better than the stick, in my opinion.

Hi Ros,

It sounds like the SDLT Thresholds remain the same, so the higher rates will be 3 percentage points above the current SDLT rates ie. over £125,000.
Not sure if this has an indirect effect on the increase of House Prices of lower valued properties, as the demand is now greater for them!

I did rewind and I did hear something.

Osborne said:

"More and more homes are being bought as BTLs, many of them cash purchases, which are not affected by the restrictions I introduced in the summer budget on mortgage interest tax relief. Frankly, people buying a home to let should not be squeezing out families who can't afford a home to buy...so I will be introducing an a rate of stamp duty on BTL that will be 3% higher....and will consult to ensure corporate property development is not affected..."