rents will soon be rising and the poor will suffer

[bil66]

There is a new tax coming out called section 24 which the Government does not want you to know about.

The tax will put up the cost of renting properties dramatically and this in turn means that landlords will not be able to rent to people on low income.

Finding a property for people on low income is already very difficult but its about to get much worse.

Action needs to be taken to stop this tax and complaints should be made to your local council and MP.

[GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER]

It's ludicrous to say that S24 is just the Tory govt. targeting lower middle class 'oik' landlords.

What IMO happened is that
a) it belatedly dawned on them that a preferential tax regime was grossly unfair to increasingly priced-out would be owner occupiers (and potential voters),
b) landlords in general are (often with reason) unpopular with whole swathes of younger voters, and
c) when every penny of tax is so badly needed, why were they being subsidised at all?

Another factor I heard of was a visit George Osborne made to a major HMRC office, where he was informed that whatever the estimate of private LLs in the U.K. (a million? maybe more?) only a relatively minor fraction of that number were declaring any rental income on their self assessment tax form.

Hence IMO the double crackdown - S24 and HMRC's relatively new, all-seeing computer system.

[ohfortuna]

All those landlords who weren't declaring their rental income because they weren't making a profit.... Low hanging fruit for HMRC when the tax changes come in

[Believeitornot]

Do you all take the view that investors that own hotels

They aren’t hoarding much needed resources.

[ohfortuna]

Over leveraged landlords will have to sell quickly and sell cheap freeing up housing stock for would be owner occupiers previously priced out of the market

[specialsubject]

buy to leave and those th ousands of.empty properties (yeah, right )is a london problem. a mayor could fix it but there are rich russians to keep sweet.

sec 24 affects higher rate tax payin g landlords with mortgages. annoyingly for the out of touc h screamers, there will be a lot unaffected.

outside the holy city rents are controlled. when the business becomes unprofitable i wil close it.

[Emilie69]

The appeal in the OP is nonsense. It is not a new tax, but rather the fair removal of some generous tax relief that gives buy-to-let buyers such a big advantage over owner-occupier buyers. Owner occupiers had their mortgage interest tax relief (MIRAS) removed several years ago, and the playing field is being levelled with landlords, which is only fair. Buy to let buyers have used this tax relief to push property prices out of reach of normal buyers, and they have contributed enormously to the massive house price inflation that is ruining so many people's lives.
It is also very wrong of landlords to try to use their tenants as human shields to try to blackmail the government into doing what they want!

[bil66]

Landlords are running a business but home owners are not.That is why landlords think they should be able to deduct their interest costs.You would not say to a taxi driver that he can't deduct the cost of fuel.

Residential property has become so political that renting property carries a serious stigma.

Nevertheless the supply of btl property is going to fall dramatically and that will force rent levels up .This is basic economics and the law of supply and demand.

Funds will be redirected into other markets as btl really isn't worth the effort.

I doubt the big companies will be interested in renting to people on housing benefit. I would never provide accommodation to the poor if I had my time over again.Far too much hassle for little reward.

I'm already switching to commercial and I feel so much happier You can't accuse me of receiving public money or getting a tax subsidy. But when the sh*t hits the fan, which it will I'm going to say I told you so

See you in 3 years when I've been proven right and you will all have to eat humble.
pie.

I standby my opening statement.Rents will rise and life for the poor is about to get much harder.

[WomanWithAltitude]

Youwould not say to a taxi driver that he can't deduct the cost of fuel.

You would if fuel was an asset that he'd later sell on for far more than he paid for it.

[WomanWithAltitude]

The fact is that the cost of the house is deducted when calculating CGT, the cost of repairs and maintenance is deducted when calculating taxable property income.

What more do you want??

[mygoditsfullofstars]

It will cause issues for renters though as rent prices will rise due to either fewer rental properties being available or LL increasing rents to cover their costs.

Typical thick landlord logic .
It won't. Rented homes don't just disappear into the ether when landlords sell. Either a tenant will buy it and become an owner occupier so one less tenant needing housing or another landlord will buy it and rent it out, therefore no loss of a home.

[mygoditsfullofstars]

For those saying we should just magically build loads more social housing - what else should suffer to achieve that? Reduce the nhs budget? Welfare budget? State pension? Government money (ie our taxes) are not infinite

How about diverting the £20billion plus in landlord benefit (housing benefit) currently going into the pockets of private landlords? Instead of gifting money to the already asset rich, build loads of homes at social rent that belong to the Government. I don't want my tax paying the mortgages/pensions of unscrupulous landlords who think they are doing the country a favour by housing a tenant in their slumhole.

[ohfortuna]

life for the poor overleveraged landlords is about to get much harder

[ohfortuna]

I would never provide accommodation to the poor if I had my time over again

oh god here we go the landlord as philanthropic savior of the poor

leave it out will you
greedy bastards buying up all the housing stock so that working people have no change of property ownership and are forced to work to fund the landlords retirements
that's what landlords really are

[Emilie69]

Rents are already at the limits of affordability. Landlords are already charging as much as they can get away with, and there has been no effort by landlords to keep rents beneath market rates.
It is despicable that landlords are now trying to threaten tenants (and the government) that they will try to punish them, if they do not support landlords' vested interests.

[ohfortuna]

Rents will rise and life for the poor is about to get much harder
mind you, you're right about something, tenants are often poor.
why are they poor?
Because they have to pay exorbitant rents and associated fee's when they have to move frequently due to 6 month leases.
Letting agents fee's are also banned now or shortly I think?

The party is over landlords, you have contributed to the fucking mess our housing market is in, time to lose your shirts

[ohfortuna]

a secure affordable home is a fundamental need, without it there is very little hope of a decent or enjoyable life, thanks to BTL vast swathes of people have been denied a secure affordable home
and you want sympathy with your 'give us what we want or the poor will suffer' bullshit??

what next, 'give us back out tax break or we poison the water supply' jog on will you

[Kenny33]

Section 24 actually started last year and is being phased in gradually. It is not an extra tax, it is the removal of a tax relief that landlords got but owner occupiers didn’t, one of the reasons landlords could outbid owner occupiers and create the housing crisis we now have by making property too expensive.

It started last tax year and rents haven’t gone up. According to this article, rents are actually dropping.

www.propertyindustryeye.com/average-rents-fall-across-the-uk-for-first-time-in-six-years-suggesting-this-is-more-than-a-correction/

Rents can only go up to what the market will stand.

[Kenny33]

Put the rents up bil66 and wait for those voids. The comments on this thread should have told you by now that no one will cry as they watch you go bankrupt. Unless it’s tears of laughter.

You have robbed people of the chance to settle in their own home and have a family. People have put off having children due to their insecure living conditions. There are also studies showing the negative impact on mental health of living insecurely.

[BubblesBuddy]

One major factor is being overlooked here: London. For £850 per month rent, there is precious little you can buy for that mortgage. DD has rented a flat just recently for that amount (2 bed and 2 tenants paying £850 each) and an identical flat in the building is for sale for £600,000. You can all do the maths. It’s just not possible to sort this out in the SE without massive sums being injected by parents. Tenants cannot afford to buy the flats! That’s some sort of joke.

We cannot, as a nation, agree where to build new homes. For those who know a bit about the industry, it’s impossible to build quickly either because there is a shortage of skilled labour and bricks. It takes years in some cases to get detailed planning permission. Suddenly everyone is an environmental specialist and knows about drainage and road layouts! Continual inquiries hold everything up.

We don’t build enough on brown field sites but unless the developer can get a reasonable return, the cost of cleaning up the site is not worth it. Any political party saying they want to build vast numbers of homes is whistling in the wind. It just won’t happen unless a whole raft of changes take place. If the developers are going to build homes at all, they need to make profits. At the moment, no one else has the skills to build homes in the numbers we want. So stop dreaming of new homes for all any time soon provided by the public sector. Not going to happen!

Prices have stagnated in many areas of the country so landlords are not making any capital appreciation. It costs money to keep a rental property up to scratch and it’s not all about making a huge profit. Many landlords don’t. However with the law that stopped councils building and a lack of land to build on where people actually want to live, it is a good job Private landlords did provide homes since the mid 1980s. Just because some are bad, it doesn’t mean they all are.

[BubblesBuddy]

No. Mrs Thatcher robbed us of council homes with right to buy. Landlords provide homes. The homes sold won’t be replaced any time soon. How do you think people with massive mortgages afford children. It’s the same for all - people struggle to afford homes.

[ohfortuna]

Landlords provide homes. The homes sold won’t be replaced any time soon. How do you think people with massive mortgages afford children. It’s the same for all - people struggle to afford homes

landlords dont provide homes they purloin them
the homes sold by landlords no longer able to stay in business do not need to be replaced, they will still be standing, they dont vanish when they are sold.
Landlords will be forced to sell or go bankrupt so they are likely to sell at a reduced price which means that would be owner occupiers will start to be able to get on the housing ladder

[Kenny33]

If anyone is interested, there is a petition here to increase the removal of tax relief from landlords ie remove the tax relief from landlords immediately rather than phasing it in. This would go some way to levelling the playing field and stop landlords bidding up the price of properties that owner occupiers should be living in.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/219416/sponsors/new?token=vUvVzQYbYPXC98Jq6E

[ohfortuna]

remove the tax relief from landlords immediately rather than phasing it in
I dont really know enough to say whether immediate or gradual change is best, I just hope we can have affordable homes for people to live in where they dont have to worry about having to uproot at the whim of a landlord

[Kenny33]

Ohfortuna - removing the tax relief immediately should stop landlords buying up family housing and will force some of them to sell the ones that they already own (hopefully making house prices drop a bit).

The tax relief they currently get gives them a huge advantage over owner occupiers when purchasing a property as it allows them to outbid the owner occupiers.

[ohfortuna]

I hear you Kenny but presume there are some benefits to doing it gradually rather than all at once?