BTL individually owned, let through a LTD Company?

BTL individually owned, let through a LTD Company?

15:59 PM, 25th March 2015, About 9 years ago 49

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It seems we may have set up a method of working that is incorrect and seek your opinion. We own several properties in husband and wife names, we then set up a Limited Company and lease these to the company for a peppercorn rent.

The Limited company then lets the properties and manages them to tenants. All income and costs go through the company, minimum wages are drawn and dividends taken quarterly. It is a family business with only family employees.

We are both only 20% tax payers, this situation is nothing to do with tax it was done to protect our houses (assets) from anything going wrong in business.

All the houses are 100% owned outright. We thought that this is the correct way of trading our rental business, but are we doing something wrong?

Many thanks

Andrewlimited


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Comments

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

16:54 PM, 21st March 2018, About 6 years ago

Reply to the comment left by andrew sheppard at 21/03/2018 - 16:45
Please book a consultation via our maintax page and I look forward to helping further.

steve120

10:10 AM, 22nd March 2018, About 6 years ago

Thank you both for your taking time to reply.

Andrew - without discussing the rental income your properties generate,
- is the current structure as tax efficient as the original structure?
- do you think the costs and effort of having the new set up justify themselves?
- if you were starting from scratch and with the benefit of hindsight, how would you structure your affairs now?

Mark
- Thank you for the links and comments. I'll read through these tonight.

Steve

andrew sheppard

12:07 PM, 22nd March 2018, About 6 years ago

Reply to the comment left by steve120 at 22/03/2018 - 10:10
What would we do differently - we started buying property with cash and just got on with it...what i would do different is to take advice about set up regarding inheritance planning from day one and financially i would likely taken some leverage debt to buy more property at a low ltv rate.
I would also start by thinking about the end game, say 20 years time, kids, retention or sale of property etc. My original vision was simply to buy some houses that would generate cash flow similar to the salary i had in industry, this gave me lifestyle choices and in theory long term property price growth would be a good use of cash that was not doing much in the bank. The tax scenario has not changed our net position, it just changed the way the money came to us.

We now will be doing some planning that could have been done sooner, however, the goalposts move and todays investment world is different to 8 years ago when we started.

steve120

10:50 AM, 27th March 2018, About 6 years ago

Reply to the comment left by andrew sheppard at 22/03/2018 - 12:07
Thanks Andrew

Did you have to get the lease drawn up by a solicitor or is there somewhere on the web that I can download or purchase a copy/template from? Seems to be a lot available for commercial properties but not residential.

Steve

Steve

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

11:39 AM, 27th March 2018, About 6 years ago

Reply to the comment left by steve120 at 27/03/2018 - 10:50
Steve

You can buy a Rent to Rent lease template for £97 via the link below.

https://www.property118.com/guaranteed-rent-to-rent-lease-contract-template-download/41817/

HOWEVER, for the reasons I have previously explained, I DO NOT recommend the structure you are contemplating for tax planning purposes.

jonney

14:04 PM, 27th March 2018, About 6 years ago

Why do you need a rent to rent template? Why not use a normal AST as provided by say NLA or RLA and have a clause allowing sub letting?

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

21:40 PM, 27th March 2018, About 6 years ago

Reply to the comment left by jonney at 27/03/2018 - 14:04
Because an AST is only appropriate for letting go individuals

steve120

23:00 PM, 27th March 2018, About 6 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Mark Alexander at 27/03/2018 - 11:39
Hi Mark

I am no expert, and without going into figures, but I read it to say that that if a justifiable 'market value rent' is paid that is not substantially less than the market value at that time (i.e. the same amount that any other company would pay on the open market) then that seems to be in compliance with the Act.

Paying a ‘peppercorn rent’ which is substantially less than the market value at that time does not comply with the Act - although I don't know how much 'peppercorn rent' is in relation to the 'relevant receipt' and the Act does not give any guidance on this. As usual, the law is as clear as mud on a dark night and leaves enough rope to hang oneself with.

Thanks for the link to the lease. I'll purchase a copy now and speak with my advisors next week before proceeding

Steve

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

6:21 AM, 28th March 2018, About 6 years ago

Reply to the comment left by steve120 at 27/03/2018 - 23:00
Hi Steve

I know a Landlord who has fallen foul of this and had to pay back hundreds of thousands of pounds of onderpaid tax. I can assure you that what I am telling you is very real.

You cannot save tax by transfering an income without also transferring the asset

James

13:11 PM, 11th October 2018, About 6 years ago

Andrew, this is really interesting. I've arranged my past affairs in exactly the same way as you describe for a few years now and sense I might need to re-structure in the way that you have. Have you an accountant or advisor you can recommend in this field. Ideally the firm that represented you with your investigation would be great?

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