FP Show

'Still more work to be done' to prepare landlords for tax relief changes




The buy-to-let industry could always be doing more to make sure that landlords are informed about the implications of section 24, it has been claimed.

The point was made during the Property Hour part one panel discussion at the FP Show at Olympia London yesterday (7th November) by Steve Matthews, head of BTL sales at Octopus Property (pictured above, second left).

When the panel was asked whether it thought landlords were prepared for their first tax return in January and fully understood the impact of interest relief removal in 2021, he said: “I think we could always be doing more as an industry to make sure that we are informing people what is coming.

“Just because we think it has been out in the press for a period of time, it doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone has taken it on board and really considered the implications of it.

“So, I think there is still more work to be done on preparing people for it.”

Roger Morris, sales director at Precise Mortgages (left) – who was chairing the panel – agreed.

Sally Wright, corporate sales manager at Vida Homeloans (right), added: “I couldn’t agree more with what has been said already.

“I think we are unprepared as a nation really.

“Unfortunately, there [are] going to be an awful lot of people that will get that shock that [they] have got individual properties in their individual name, that will probably be working full time with the vast majority [of them being] high-rate tax payers and they are the ones, unfortunately, that are going to be hardest hit in [this] way.”

When asked whether she had seen a rise in limited company applications since the introduction of Section 24, Liz Syms, CEO at Connect for Intermediaries (second right) said that professional landlords with number of properties who changed over to limited companies could notice a huge difference.

“If someone only has one or two properties, they might actually consider that the cost implications of transferring over isn’t worth it.

“But if someone is a professional landlord and they have a number of properties, we have seen a greater degree of these landlords wanting to transfer their properties over to a limited company.”

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