There has been an angry reaction from landlord organisations and others to the news that buy to let and second home properties will be subject to an additional 3.0 per cent stamp duty from next April.
The announcement, in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, is expected to generate around £1 billion, much of which will be spent on new homes as part of an extensive programme announced by George Osborne.
The chief executive of the National Landlords Association, Richard Lambert, says: “The Chancellor’s political intention is crystal clear; he wants to choke off future investment in private properties to rent. If it’s the Chancellor’s intention to completely eradicate buy to let in the UK then it’s a mystery to us why he doesn’t just come out and say so”.
As a result of Osborne's July Budget, buy to let landlords are already due to get a lower rate of tax relief on mortgage payments, and a less generous interpretation of the annual wear and tear allowance.
“The buy to let investor should not be blamed for house price rises, rather, this is down to the chronic shortage of housebuilding in this country which is compounded by population growth. We would therefore advise caution against penalising this group of investors when actually other policy areas hold the key to unlock the solution” says Stuart Law, chief executive of Assetz for Investors, a pro-buy to let organisation.
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As it is, investing in BTL is not really worth the effort any more unless one has a few hundred thousand in cash lying about.
Add to that the every increasing % deposit, banks reluctant to lend, added admin costs due to extra legislation, ever mounting bias towards tenant's rights and now this little initiave and one could quite reasonably argue that funds would be more effectively invested somewhere else.
Go on Osborne. Kill the PRS. Let's see where all those poor put upon tenants are going to live then.
Because one thing is for sure. You have no social housing to accommodate them. Do you?
It is very clear that Osbourne wants to kill of the small private landlord and hand the private rental sector over to his corporate buddies who make the big political donations.
Osbourne is generally has it in for small businesses - witness the huge rise in the minimum wage, combined with forcing even the smallest business to run pension schemes for all of the employees.
For Tory voters he is very much the Judas chancellor.
I totally disagree with George Osborne's approach to the PRS because it's unfair, it penalises a section of society who voted for his party and there are some ther solutions that would work better. However, he us a dastardly clever chap and he has an instinct for both politics and economics which you have to at least respect. We have found ourselves the most dangerous of all adversaries, one who thinks he doesn't need us. However there is one tiny ray of hope, he is also a pragmatist as witnessed by his climb down in his statement. This tells us that while no amount of bleating will influence him, if he thinks he risks losing the popular support he will back down, only landlords, not agents could influence him
So if i understand this correctly, individuals will be hit with the extra stamp duty but companies will not? is the government trying to wipe out small btl investors?
I wonder what the Chancellors brother Adam feels about this? He is a private landlord and has properties in a seaside town in the North West. I bet he's not best pleased!!
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