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OTHER GUIDES & TIPS

Tax loophole closed for landlords claiming business rates

Landlords who let out holiday properties as businesses may have to fork out as much as £1,000 more per year as the government closes what it describes as a tax loophole.

Currently, second home owners in England can avoid paying council tax by saying they intend to let their properties to other holidaymakers and so qualify as small businesses - thus eligible for business rates rather than the more expensive council tax.

There is little policing or enforcement of the existing policy.

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However, Housing Secretary Michael Gove has announced that second home owners can only register for business rates if they can prove they let the properties for at least 70 days in a year.

 

Gove’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities says that the move follows a big rise in holiday lets in England, with some 65,000 residential units currently registered, up from 50,960 in 2019.

The majority of these have low rateable values, making them effectively exempt from paying business rates.

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  • icon

    I have holiday flats which are full all year. I used to be very happy renting normally and was known to be a great landlord - which I was. Low rents and good maintenance of the property. Then one day I got a tenant from hell and I could do nothing as he had all the backing of the authorities. I was a Landlord and therefore must have been Satan!!!
    That was it! Once I bribed him to leave (that’s his modus operandi) I gave up being a landlord and went Airbnb. It’s nothing to do with the money. I simply refuse to be treated like the villain by a biased system! And do you know why they make it so difficult to evict nasty tenants? Because they would have to house them, that’s why! So they go all sanctimonious on the landlord. That tenant destroyed my psyche! I wanted to shoot him.
    So the hell with being a good landlord : from now I will be a good host (I get 5*, by the way).

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    Brilliant Tony. My story is very similar to yours and I too am on the Airbnb path and intending to sell the rest of my portfolio. Being a PRS landlord nowadays isn't worth the hassle ....there are easier ways to make a living.

     
  • icon

    And the rental market lost a good landlord. Well done politicians! Well done!!!

  • Nick Payne

    So NOT a tax loophole for landlords.

  • PossessionFriendUK PossessionFriend

    This Govt' needs to have the gun taken off them, as they keep shooting tenants in the foot. !!!

    Theodor Cable

    And it seems they are not bright enough to see the damage they have done, and are about to do!!!!!!

     
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