A controversial new report demands that the government uses next month’s Budget to sharply increase tax burdens for landlords.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s report wants, amongst other things:
- A higher Stamp Duty Land Tax surcharge on investor purchases to give an advantage to those seeking to buy a home to live in;
- The removal of the current Rent A Room tax break on short-term lets, which currently give landlords a £7,500 tax free allowance on rents, to discourage landlords from switching from long-term lets to other types of rentals; and
- Consideration to scrap council tax and Stamp Duty and replace with an annual property tax paid by the owner (or, the landlord) rather than the resident.
The JRF claims the housing market is facing a ‘worst of all worlds’ situation as rising interest rates and high inflation create the conditions for a housing market freeze.
It paints a picture of a market “where building stops, transactions stall, cash rich investors swoop in to buy up properties, rents continue to spiral and vulnerable homeowners are stuck in unaffordable homes.”
It urges the government to act in a way which will not only get the market moving, but “start to put right the problems which are excluding younger generations from owning their own home or finding genuinely affordable homes to rent.”
The authors describe a sensationalised interpretation of the current situation and forecast “a collapse in housebuilding” as housebuilders mothball sites to avoid selling in a falling market, and existing owner avoiding going to the market until prices rise.
The foundation claims to see “investors swooping in to buy up homes for holiday lets or short-term lets using cash, while first-time buyers relying on mortgage finance are frozen out.”
It therefore wants the March 15 Budget to include these measures:
- Keep housebuilding going by empowering and funding councils, housing associations, charities and community groups to acquire stalled sites from developers and redesign schemes to include more affordable housing, which can be built quickly as prices fall;
- Increase the Stamp Duty Land Tax surcharge on investor purchases to give an advantage to those seeking to buy a home to live in;
- Remove tax breaks on short-term lets, which currently give landlords a £7,500 tax free allowance on rents, to discourage landlords from switching from long-term lets to other types of rentals;
- Levy council tax on homes in new developments 18 months after planning permission has been granted whether built or not;
- Support households struggling with higher costs by unfreezing Local Housing Allowance so it meets the cost of local rents and establishing a new version of the Mortgage Rescue Scheme launched in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, which would fund social landlords to buy the homes of mortgaged homeowners in distress.
And in the longer term it wants the government to replace council tax and stamp duty with an annual property tax paid by the owner not resident and launch “an ambitious new programme of powerful development corporations to lead a new generation of high quality, mixed tenure developments.”
It also wants councils to have the power to declare Housing Pressure Zones where they can set the rules about who can buy properties in particular areas. It says: “This could be used to restrict investor activity where high demand for second homes or low demand is fuelling exploitative lets.”
Darren Baxter, a policy adviser at the foundation, says: “We are facing a housing downturn that will put vulnerable families and our country’s economic prospects into serious difficulty.
“The government must confront this head on and recognise that past approaches will not work this time.
“Instead, the government must tackle both the short-term fallout from the housing downturn we find ourselves in and the deeper problems within our housing system.
“By acting now, and doing both at the same time, government will ensure we are better placed to come out of this downturn with a fairer, more secure and more affordable housing system in reach.”
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More Nails in the Coffin of BTL.
We run Businesses and like every other one if the figures don’t work then we move out of the sector.
That’s certainly what I am doing as I’m totally sick of all the grief being placed on PRS LLs by Government and Councils.
I’ve said it for the past few years now, a massive housing issue is hurtling down the road for the Government and Councils as we have propped them up for years and years.
Now they are making it all but impossible to continue.
Bye Bye BTL
In other words penalise the PRS, for the government failures to provide sufiiccient homes, owned or rented, throughout the UK, to meet the demands of an ever increasing population..
Property tax , here we go
Epc targets impossible to reach , take property off via compulsory purchase
By 2030 there’ll be no prs at all
All this drivel will do is make more leave the sector and cause more homelessness.
These Mickey Mouse clubs should be band. There opinions are wrongly directed . And firmly all the blame belongs with our very incompetent government.
BUILD MORE AFFORDABLE HOUSING! Both to buy & to rent - it is really so simple! An MP yesterday said there were 96,000 households living in temporary accommodation ie hotels paid for by councils. Building new houses would cut the huge waste of money on putting people up in grotty hotels. Why not build modular housing that can be put up quickly & cheaply? More housing is the solution to so many problems!
Money is the problem. There isn't any. Developers won't provide enough either as it's not worth it to them.
JFR Just crawled out from under his rock if we only had a triple whammy wouldn’t it be great.
How many whammies have we got ready Removing Section 21 caused thousands of LL’s to quit, increased homelessness and drove up Rents 25/30% they must hate Tenants also which caused the glut of AirBnB’s that he is complaining about.
So make one bad law (wrong) then make several more bad laws because of the first bad law.
Whammy S.21, S.24 doubled Stamp Duty, Rogue Deposit scheme by Shelter making it a liability not a protection, 2015 De-Registration Act to stop evictions whammy, Right 2 Rent, How 2 Rent, Selective licensing, Additional licensing, Mandatory licensing, and repeated several times on same properties whammy whammy whammy. Fees started in 2006 @ £598. App’ fee and kept increasing now can be more than £1500., whammy. He wants funding (our taxes) for loads of lame ducks, even included our famous type Charity that supplies no housing whammy.
Loads of Compliance work that has cost me fortunes over the years and my skilled labour for free none of which applies to home owners adjacent replica property, whammy. EPC’s whammy’s. 28% C/gains tax especially for landlords only whammy. Several Safety Certificates on going for ever requirements that don’t apply to home owners. Replacement classed Capital improvement you claim it when you sell but you don’t sell so repeat the process many times and just die. So how much more tax does JFR want, tell this to landlords with big Mortgage’s around their necks & interest rates through the roof, Oh I nearly forget the landlords had actually to buy the property I thought it fell into their lap whammy.
The drive to kick out landlords but blame them for the housing problems goes on
As I’ve been saying for the last 2+ years this is a massive issue for the greedy Government and Councils.
Where will they get the money that it will cost, bearing in mind it is currently costing £millions EVERY DAY to keep the boat people in hotels, and yes that s £millions EVERY DAY.
Next WILL be the housing crisis where they have to pay more and more
£Millions every day to B&Bs and cheap hotels.
Now that isn’t fiction it’s FACT.
But the Government and Councils think it’s a good idea to alienate all the LLs that have been propping them up for years until we’ve had enough and sell our properties to private buyers which means the majority of these properties never come back on the rental market again.
But they know best
😂😂 All comedy 🎭 Gold, another day … another psycho attack.
I love your use of smileys , great stuff !!!
Who exactly is supposed to benefit from any of those proposals?
The only one that would do any good for anyone is unfreezing the LHA.
If JRF genuinely wanted to reduce homelessness they would be demanding lower taxes to increase supply.
If we went back to the tax policies of the early 2000s (1% SDLT, standard definition of profit and taper relief on CGT) we would boost the overall supply of new builds.
Whether those new builds are bought by owner occupiers or the PRS or as Social Housing is totally irrelevant as long as they will be occupied as full time homes. All 3 tenures are equally valid and necessary for a functioning society.
If planning policy was changed and the CIL contribution reduced far more affordable housing could be built.
Making an equivalent of LHA available to home owners would give lenders the confidence to lend to far more people. It would also lift huge numbers of children out of poverty. Right now a tenant with 2 children living in a 3 bedroom rental can earn over £50K and still have a small UC entitlement because they are entitled to LHA. A homeowner's UC entitlement would stop when their earnings reach about £32K because there is no help with housing costs.
There's a huge requirement for more affordable housing so what do they do?..... Constantly attack the landlords who are propping up their miserable system.... Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!!
The harm this will transfer to tenants is unimaginabley worse that the meagre financial gain to Govt, which WON'T find its way back to Tenants.
Its long past time when the Harm that so - called Tenant support groups cause to those they purport to represent, are called out.
Demand all you want Joseph, it's never going to happen, the Tories are shoring up support in the run up to the May elections and then already looking to the GE next year. They are not going to slit their own throats at the 11th hour.
Higher stamp duty is just added onto the purchase price which determines the rent, council / property tax paid by landlord will be added to the rent (just as agents letting fees have been), all this BS achieves is higher rents for tenants, can't these half wits see that ?
And how does the Rowntree Foundation think that landlords will find the extra money they are suggesting be imposed? Erm . . . I don't know, increase the rents perhaps?
How stupid can these people be? That was rhetorical by the way as there is no limit.
Why don't we put all of these young male Albanians to work as builders so they can pay their own way and ease the housing crisis instead of taking up our precious accommodation and stop their freeloading.
Plenty of other idle people could be contributing too.
In a nutshell - renters hardships are simply a government cash cow for raising taxes.
Cause a problem, then raise taxes claiming it will fix the problem you caused. Repeat.
Council Tax on new builds whether built or not 18 months after planning? Have these people ever gone through the process of building new houses? It sometimes takes that long to clear conditions because of the red tape around delivering sites. Absolute jokers!
Also bigger developments often take 3 or 4 years to physically build. Logistics and health and safety dictate how many people and vehicles can be on site at any time.
JRF wants us destroyed at the same time wants us to fund everyone, how does that work if we are not there.
"Increase the Stamp Duty Land Tax surcharge on investor purchases to give an advantage to those seeking to buy a home to live in;"
...and so force higher costs to Landlords who buy homes for others, less fortunate or don't want to buy to live in. Resulting in higher rents. DUH!
I am in broad agreement with the objectives of this organisation (see below) but I am concerned that they can't see that their current proposals to make the PRS less attractive would make things worse not better for tenants!! Just have to hope Mr Gove will ignore them.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is an independent social change organisation working to solve UK poverty.
About us: At JRF and Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (JRHT), we share two overarching outcomes:
Everyone has a decent home in a good place.
Everyone has good living standards and prospects.
Through research, policy, collaboration and practical solutions, JRF aims to inspire action and change that will create a prosperous UK without poverty, where:
More people want to solve poverty, understand it and take action.
More people find a route out of poverty through work.
More people find a route out of poverty through a better system of social security.
More people live in a decent, affordable home.
Rowntree fruit pastilles !?
George
I think that's where the money comes from.
So dangerously inept and politicised are these ‘so called reports’ that it beggars belief.
The decision I’ve just made to evict another of my tenants of 10yrs + and their two children is plain heartbreaking.
I am just no longer prepared to be every govs or ‘think tanks’ whipping boy, and have my own family and their future to consider too. I am selling up now while I still can. It’s has nothing to do with money and everything to do with ‘being roundly abused by Gov for far too long’. What’s doubly gauling is that Gov actually swallows all this ‘third party tripe’ ie JRF, Shelter, Gen Rent et el.
Same here, selling the up.
But not only selling up but selling up faster than previously because the CGT allowance that used to mean I sold one a year means Jack S*** any more.
I will NEVER EVER rent a property again, if the tenants leave it gets sold, end of story. We all know that Government and Councils are simply sat there thinking up other ways of making thousands and thousands of people homeless
It's all part of the grand plan , total enslavement of us all and a return to feudal times
Middle class was an experiment that went wrong as too many climbed the ladder
Just ignore it. I'm sick of reading these stupid stories. Rowntree group, who are they. Stick to making sweets you numpty's.
When and if it happens ! Until then be British and keep calm.
This I do agree with: "Support households struggling with higher costs by unfreezing Local Housing Allowance so it meets the cost of local rents". Government need to make up the LHA to what is the average private rental price in the local area, and then track it making any adjustments to the allowance year on year going forward. Just doing that would fix a lot of current problems for landlords and tenants.
Agreed Jackie, but I can't see it happening
Jackie
If you read these comments you will realise that landlords are capping their rents to get lha. Banks and financial institutions don't want the competition and are after big money. look at the subsidies given to private energy, green energy, education, railways that's what will happen to the PRS when we are driven out.
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