A letting agents’ trade group is urging the industry to sign a parliamentary petition calling for the Section 24 changes for buy-to-let landlord taxation to be scrapped.
Launched by Simon Foster, a Midlands-based landlord, the petition calls on the government to enable landlords to offset all the running costs against their tax, as they were able to do up until 2015.
Now Tim Clark, chairman of the UK Association of Letting Agents, says: “This is merely a reversal to a situation, before 2015, where landlords could offset all the costs of running their business, including mortgage interest. This is perfectly acceptable in any other business. It seems unreasonable to treat landlords differently”.
A recent study conducted by UKALA among letting agents members revealed that, when asked about the availability of rental stock, 89 per cent of agent respondents saw their landlords reducing portfolios in 2023.
Not a single agent saw their landlords increasing their portfolios and only 11 per cent forecast no change occurring.
Clark continues: “The increasing burden on landlords, which has been happening for quite some time, is now starting to have a real impact on the availability of rental stock in the private sector. Our survey results show this quite starkly. A reversal of the section 24 situation could help enormously to encourage landlords not to sell out”
Section 24 removes a landlord's right to deduct finance costs, including mortgage interest and arrangement fees, from their rental income before calculating their tax liability. This means landlords have to pay tax on the gross income they earn from a rental property.
So far the petition has over 37,000signatures. If it reaches 100,000 signatures by its closing date of May 10 it would be likely - although not guaranteed - that there would be a Parliamentary debate on the subject.
You can sign the petition yourself here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/627785
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Meaningless. I’ve signed, but there have been multiple petitions on this over the years since 2015 and all were ignored, with MPs still sending out the usual Treasury template response explaining that they love high rents and homelessness and will be doing nothing to ease the situation.
James, you are getting nearly as cynical as me I wonder why ?.
I don't think giving up, or letting off the pressure, highlighting the increased costs for tenants is the right thing to do.
We must be ' PR ' gurus' and translate the impact for our customers, rather than consequences for landlords.
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