Landlord Reactions To The 2017 Autumn Budget

Reply to the comment left by steve p at 22/11/2017 - 14:12
Yes double council tax paid for the council to provide no services. It's a complete scam from this bunch of lying government idiots.

The above may come as a surprise

The Govt want to encourage the FTB and I welcome that 100%

The changes we have seen are to give FTB a chance The intention

is to slow BTL down and maybe that's a good thing

we have a win win situation here apart from paying a little more Tax

If I look at my Business its worth Millions and the value is in the capital so if my Millions grow by just 1% I can afford S24 out

of pocket money

If the FTB comes back to the Market as hoped my growth could be a lot more than 1%.

Philip Hammond has scrapped stamp duty for first-time buyers on properties worth up to £300,000. This will be beneficial for homeowner as it will increase the House prices.

Reply to the comment left by Sami Houmrani at 22/11/2017 - 16:43
'Little more tax' (Section 24) is going to kill a number of your fellow landlords...
Win win situation indeed

Well, many landlords will be heaving a sigh of relief that the war on landlords by the Conservative Party was not ramped up in the Budget, although of course disappointed that he did not take this opportunity to reverse Section 24. That would have been the single most useful thing he could have done. Other observations:
• One can only speculate what he meant when he said he would incentivise landlords who offer longer-term tenancies to those who want them. Landlords are wondering whether this might mean he would exempt landlords from Section 24 if they are willing to offer the longer contracts. An exemption for ‘social tenants’ was introduced in Ireland and led speedily to the full restoration of landlords’ rights to offset finance costs when calculating profit. Fingers crossed for a similar trajectory in the UK. It was, however, good that he did not swallow Shelter’s absurd proposal that all tenancies default to long-term ones (something most tenants don’t want and many lenders don’t allow) or follow Scotland’s awful example of introducing indefinite contracts – one of a raft of measures which will damage the PRS north of the border.
• He announced a doubling of council tax on empty homes. Let’s hope this doesn’t include when properties are empty whilst landlords refurbish them, including when repairing all the damage done by rogue tenants. Maybe he can announce that the rogue tenant will then be liable to pay the extra charge, as it will be the tenant who caused the property to become vacant in the first place (and pigs will fly). A further point is that who does the Chancellor think brings many of what were empty properties back into habitable use? Us; that’s who. And do we get thanked for it? No, we get treated like we’re the human equivalent of the Black Death.
• He made some welcome concessions on Universal Credit, shortening the waiting time from 6 weeks to 5, improving emergency payments and saying that when claimants move onto UC they will be paid a further two weeks HB whilst this claim is going through. That might persuade some landlords to take the risk of huge arrears under the new system (it wouldn’t influence me). What they are not seeing is the larger picture. Landlords’ main priority in the face of huge tax increases has to be to increase rents as high as they will go (not for landlords’ benefit, but purely to collect this on behalf of the Exchequer).
• He promised a further £28 million to tackle homelessness, when it is Government policy which is exacerbating homelessness, primarily through Section 24 and Universal Credit.
• He has abolished SDLT on the first £300,000 for first time buyers purchasing any property up to the value of £500,000. So someone purchasing a £300,000 home to live in pays no tax, but 6 homes valued at £50,000 each, making a total of £300,000 face SDLT of 3% - making landlords far less likely to purchase these to do up and rent out to families in far greater need than those who can afford to spend £300,000-£500,000 on their first home. The ‘level playing field’ argument about landlords and FTBs just got even crazier.
Jeremy Corbyn’s response to all this was predictable – apart from the fact that he now supports landlords being paid Housing Benefit direct as Labour has realised that giving tenants large sums of money with which they might or might not pay the rent actually leads to evictions and homelessness. So, in this respect, he wants landlords to be given HB direct and incredibly, on this one issue appears to be in harmony with what landlords want.
However, practically in his next breath, Corbyn stated: ‘…with 10 billion going into the pockets of private landlords every year, housing is a key factor in driving up the welfare bill. Not too many words from the Chancellor about the excessive levels of rents in the private rented sector.’
He, and others like him, keep repeating the lie that Housing Benefit is a kind of gift or subsidy to landlords. What would he do then? Would he tell tenants who can’t afford to pay for accommodation that they will get nothing? Would he give it to the tenants as it should not go into landlords ‘pockets’ (going against his previous comment about it going directly to landlords)? Would he somehow try to force landlords to offer accommodation for free (as it is wrong of them to accept HB)? Would he bring in rent caps, which would drive thousands of landlords from the market (and even then, the housing benefit bill for private and social housing providers would still be huge)?
Who knows what goes on that deranged mind?
Anyway, all in all, most landlords will not be losing any additional sleep after this and we can live in hope that the war on us will be soon be over. The Government will have to see sense at some point and will then beg us to forgive and forget all the crap they have subjected us to over the last two years in particular. It is only a matter of time before they reverse all the aggressive policies against us and realise that they need us to provide the essential housing for workers, families, migrants, students and the low-paid.

Reply to the comment left by Sami Houmrani at 22/11/2017 - 16:43
If it increases house prices it puts BTL at a greater disadvantage vs FTBS who not only have to pay even more to buy the property but also have to pay full whack Stamp duty - this means that landlords would have to pay about 5% more for the property, have a more expensive mortgage and then be hit with S24 on the income /mortgage.

Luckily for many there was no change to tax rules around interest rate tax relief on property owned in companies but I expect this will follow soon enough.

I don't think they want to kill off the PRS just tax it to the verge of bankruptcy.

Reply to the comment left by Simon Hall at 22/11/2017 - 15:45
1st time buyers only

Reply to the comment left by Jamie Moodie at 22/11/2017 - 17:52
You are right but Stamp Duty is calculated at the top of what first time buyers pay. So if they pay Zero on £250K as stated in my example the surcharge would be £7500 as opposed to £10000.

Reply to the comment left by Whiteskifreak Surrey at 22/11/2017 - 17:34
Luckily for many there was no change to tax rules, this is the worst that can happen, but I expect this will follow soon.

Reply to the comment left by Simon Hall at 22/11/2017 - 18:16
You are probably correct in the process of the maths, but I'll bet a great dinner out that these barstewards will charge us full stamp duty plus the 3% as per the old start point.

Reply to the comment left by Jamie Moodie at 22/11/2017 - 18:29
"these barstewards" good going.