Accountants for Landlords

Property is taxed unlike any other business, and the rules have moved sharply against individual landlords over the last decade. The difference between a well-structured portfolio and a badly structured one is frequently tens of thousands of pounds a year.

Section 24 and why higher-rate landlords feel squeezed

The finance cost restriction means mortgage interest is no longer deductible from rental profit. Instead you receive a basic-rate tax reduction, which pushes your taxable rental income up and can drag you into a higher tax band on income you never actually received. Highly geared portfolios held personally are hit hardest, and the effect compounds as rates rise. Our guide to how landlords are restructuring around Section 24 works through the arithmetic.

Should your property sit in a company?

Incorporating a portfolio can restore full relief for finance costs and give access to corporation tax rates rather than income tax rates. It is not automatically the answer: transferring property to a company is a disposal for Capital Gains Tax and can trigger Stamp Duty Land Tax, so the up-front cost has to be weighed against the annual saving and how long you intend to hold.

We model both positions over a realistic holding period rather than quoting a rule of thumb, and advise on incorporation relief where it may apply. See incorporation and its CGT implications.

Selling: the 60-day trap

Dispose of a UK residential property at a gain and you have 60 days from completion to report it and pay the tax, through a standalone return that sits well ahead of your Self Assessment. Non-residents must file even where no tax is due. Because completion dates are known weeks in advance, the penalties here are entirely avoidable, and the planning has to happen before exchange. See the 60-day rule.

Furnished holiday lets

The furnished holiday let regime has been abolished, removing the preferential treatment on finance costs, capital allowances and pension-relevant earnings that FHL owners relied on. If you hold short-let property, the position needs revisiting rather than assuming the old rules still apply, as our guide to FHL abolition explains.

Making Tax Digital is coming for landlords

MTD for Income Tax introduces digital record-keeping and quarterly updates for landlords above the qualifying income thresholds, phased in by income level. For anyone still running a portfolio on a spreadsheet, that is a change of habit as much as software. We get the records onto a compatible platform before it becomes compulsory, see MTD for Income Tax and the best accounting software for UK landlords.

What we do for landlords

Rental accounts and Self Assessment, structuring advice across personal, joint and corporate ownership, CGT computations and 60-day filings, and tax planning across the portfolio rather than property by property.