Give buy to let more tax breaks, urges Paragon MD

Give buy to let more tax breaks, urges Paragon MD

15:42 PM, 23rd June 2011, About 13 years ago 4

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Buy to let landlord should get tax breaks say Paragon

Buy to let movers and shakers have urged the government to consider the private residential landlords as businesses to promote more investment in housing.

Landlord mortgage specialist John Heron, managing director of Paragon Mortgages berated the government for failing to motivate property investors with tax breaks.

Heron made his remarks while raising the curtain on the Council of Mortgage Lenders buy to let conference at London’s Earls Court Conference Centre.

He told the audience of key players in the buy to let arena that landlords needed recognition from politicians that they are running small to medium businesses.

“For years housing policy has failed to address the fact that if we want a larger private rented sector, private landlords have to be motivated to expand supply.,” he said.

“If we look abroad to countries around the world with larger private rented markets you find housing and fiscal policies considerably more supportive of private landlords, with tax breaks for depreciation and capital losses a routine element of the mix used to motivate landlords.

“Such an approach in the UK would make investment less cyclical and more long-term, to the benefit of landlords, tenants and ultimately the UK plc.”

Heron also explained to the conference that buy to let had revolutionised private home rentals, set higher standards and given choice to tenants while giving property investors an attractive asset class.

“The private rented sector makes a great contribution to the UK economy – it facilitates labour mobility and flexibility, provides an income to thousands of small businesses, supports a number of associated industries, such as letting agents and maintenance companies, oils the wheels of the housing market and makes a great contribution to the public purse,” he said.

“Buy-to-let has played a major role in this, providing the vital finance needed to fund the improvement in choice and standards. Buy-to-let is not just about a balance sheet – it has had a clear and tangible beneficial impact on the lives of millions of renters.”


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DC

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10:43 AM, 30th June 2011, About 13 years ago

Whilst Mr Heron makes a very valid point it would be nice if BTL lenders were to stop pocketing large amounts of interest gained from over-high mortgage rates.
Where is the parity between BTL, normal residential mortgage rates and the BoE base rate?
If the government were to introduce more tax breaks and investor incentives would this prompt BTL lenders to take an even larger slice of the cake??

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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10:52 AM, 30th June 2011, About 13 years ago

Increased margins post Credit Crunch is a very interesting topic which Mike Woodfine of The Money Centre wrote a very interesting and amusing article about last year - see this link

As more and more lenders are re-entering the market we are seeing margins beginning to reduce though so that has to be good news for landlords.

Charlie W Jones

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13:58 PM, 30th June 2011, About 13 years ago

As a small BTL investor I see no logical reason why there are not
Business tax benefits applied to it.
It is usually small investors like myself who offer the service of housing
which used to be the local authorities duty.
Coupled with housing benefit being paid directly to the tenant , which
at present has left my BLT account well down and I have little chance
of getting that back via CCJ's and more court costs.
We require action to prevent BTL investors pulling out of the game all together
and resulting in more people homeless and longer public housing waiting lists.

Eric Osman

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10:38 AM, 3rd July 2011, About 13 years ago

One of the things that landlords need to do is a risk assessment under HHSRS. I suggest that any capital expenditure arising from HHSRS risk assessment should be deductable from rental income. The sort of thing that I have in mind is the installation of fire alarms or fire doors. Other landlords may be able to offer other examples.

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