General Election 8th June – Who on earth do landlords vote for?

Reply to the comment left by "Barry Fitzpatrick" at "20/05/2017 - 10:17":

Hi Barry. I just want to say you are doing a really excellent job on this and you are showing what can be done with persistence. He has clearly shifted his position so far as a result of your persistence. Keep it up and keep letting us know how he answers. Everyone should be doing this with their MPs. Obviously you know how to answer all his points excellently and others may not be so confident, so I would say to them that they can post replies from their MPs here and we can chip in with ideas of how to counter each point, as sometimes they really try to blind us with strange arguments that do not immediately seem answerable.

@Ros

Thanks for the encouragement.

Although AK is not in a position to get things done we don't know who his contacts are. It's annoying also that someone in our industry is so unsupportive, and naive on this subject.

Reply to the comment left by "Barry Fitzpatrick" at "20/05/2017 - 10:17":

Hi Barry

A couple of his sentences merit attention.

“Clearly the idea of growing portfolios through leverage has proved attractive to landlords and as you say has kept rents low. I believe this equates to a tax subsidy to tenants and personally, I don’t want my taxes spent on this.”

He accepts that the increased supply of dwellings that is the result of landlords’ ability to borrow the money to buy them has kept rents lower than they otherwise would be. But he claims that the finance costs are a subsidy to tenants which comes out of the taxes he pays.

Has he also swallowed the lie Osborne uttered when he first announced Section 24 on 8 July 2015? Osborne said, verbatim, “For the wealthiest, every pound of mortgage interest costs they incur, they get 45p back from the taxpayer.” This was completely untrue and was disgraceful.

This lie made some people believe that we actually get a payment from HMRC out of taxes paid by other people, based on our finance costs!
Is Knee one of them?

"If rents reach a fair level and landlords only leverage their investment where they have to rather than to receive a subsidy from taxpayers I believe the market will function far better."

What is the fair level that rents should rise to? His firm, LMS, is based in Cheshire. Does he have any idea of rents in London and the South?

What does “only leverage their investment where they have to” mean? It beats me.

Deeply unimpressive.

Reply to the comment left by "Appalled Landlord" at "20/05/2017 - 12:33":

Totally agree.

For any CEO this lack of basic business economics would be sad, but for someone in our industry is appalling.

For anyone else wanting to write to him (please reference to original "Mortgage Introducer" article and not my private emails) his email address is Andy.Knee@lms.com

“Clearly the idea of growing portfolios through leverage has proved attractive to landlords and as you say has kept rents low. I believe this equates to a tax subsidy to tenants and personally, I don’t want my taxes spent on this.”

At last we have a written admission that section 24 is a tenant tax.

How are taxes being spent on this ? It's as if they are giving us the money !! And what is not mentioned is the lender pays tax on the money anyway absolute lies and spin

Reply to the comment left by "NW Landlord" at "20/05/2017 - 13:11":

What's-his-name who is job-sharing at the top of the Green Party said on Question Time that the £6 billion subsidy to buy-to-let landlords must be scrapped. Does anyone know what he can be referring to? Would this be the 20% being gifted back after the 100% of finance costs are disallowed?

Personally, I am losing the will to live and don't want to write to the tw*t, but it would be great if someone else is willing. I usually suffer fools, if not gladly then willingly, but I don't feel like it today.

Probably they say they would end the BTL tax break completely and use the saving to build social housing

Reply to the comment left by "Dr Rosalind Beck" at "20/05/2017 - 15:44":

Jonathan Bartley is the co-leader of the Green Party was on Thursday's BBC "Question Time"

I too was trying to find this £6bn and there is nothing on the Green Party website. I seem to recall at the televised "leaders" debate when the former leader, Natalie Bennett, mentioned £6bn mortgage releif for Landlords. The 2015 Green Party manifesto stated "Abolish landlord perks, such as tax deductions against a variety of expenditures, including mortgage interest relief. Ending mortgage interest tax relief alone will raise £5.8 billion a year."

I also looked at the Green Party 2017 Manifesto whilst on the website and this is what it had to say about the PRS "We will introduce a living rent for all through rent controls, provide more secure tenancies for private renters, and introduce mandatory licensing for all landlords."

They seem to have dropped (or at least not written down) the complete abolition of mortgage interest relief for Landlords

Reply to the comment left by "Dr Rosalind Beck" at "20/05/2017 - 15:44":

I wonder what his opinion is of the huge tax subsidy given to Amazon, Capita and all the other big companies who mostly don't even pay their full amount of corporation tax.