Labour is gearing up for a tax raid on landlords – claim

If you have City/ London property best to sell now (as CG will be high) at CGT 24% rate. Reeves will not hang about to put it to 40%+ in Autumn so best to do your calculations now. As it can take 6 months to sell a place. I am doing my calcs and investing in Grainger might be a better return in city locations

Reply to the comment left by Crouchender at 19/05/2025 – 07:46
Yes, the corporatisation of everything is what they want, then that too will be pressured unti’ you will own nothing’.

Reply to the comment left by Crouchender at 19/05/2025 – 07:46
What is Grainger?

The Telegraph are constantly fear-mongering they do this every time in the run up to a Budget or Financial Statement. They must all sit around brainstorming as to what the Government could possibly come up with. They’ve been doing this for years. Q. Why ? A. To sell newspapers.
I just ignore their BS now it’s beyond ridiculous.

You seem to forget that property ownership in the UK is only ever notional. You don’t physically hold it, store it, or move it. Your proof of ownership is a digital entry at HM Land Registry — and with the stroke of a civil servant’s pen, that can be altered or removed.

Unlike gold, currency, art, crypto, shares or any other portable asset, you cannot wrap up your property and put it in a suitcase. You are chained to the government until the end of time. The state knows this — and exploits it.

The attack on property owners is no longer a warning — it’s a sustained, multi-pronged offensive. First came taxation. Then layers of regulation. Now we’re seeing the rise of punitive enforcement through arbitrary fines enabled by local bylaws. The latest absurdity? Landlords are being made responsible for their tenants’ recycling habits.

Debt is being weaponised. The government saddles property owners with unaffordable financial burdens — and when payments lapse, it moves in. You either pay to stay on the title register or you’re forced to sell. The next owner is no freer; they just step onto the same loaded merry-go-round. All the while, the government holds de facto security over your asset while pretending you’re in control.

And don’t think this is accidental. You are being compelled to maintain the property, compelled to keep it occupied, and if you don’t comply? Double, triple, even quadruple council tax is the punishment. The value transfer is silent but effective — from you to them — via a civil service paper trail that costs them nothing but could cost you your life’s work.

This isn’t reform. It’s expropriation by stealth. In Labour circles, it’s already been given a name: “Intelligent Nationalisation.” Their KPI? The number of landlord insolvencies registered.

And don’t think they’ll stop before they’ve broken the industry. They operate on the belief that they can do it better — as most spectators do. Once enough damage is done, they’ll either relax the taxes, regulations and fines to salvage what’s left of the existing operators — or they’ll hand it off to more compliant entities: institutional portfolios or local councils.

This mindset is no longer hidden. A Labour MP was recently overheard justifying planned inheritance tax changes affecting farmers with the words: “It’s only the land returning to the state.”
If that’s what they’ll say in public, what do you think is said behind closed doors?

And now comes the next phase: redistribution by carbon budget. Under cover of climate policy, your home will be judged not only on its energy rating, but on how many people should live in it. Space standards, EPC certificates, voter rolls, NHS registrations — all will be cross-referenced. A “carbon occupancy budget” will be assigned. Any “under-occupied” home that doesn’t qualify for exemption will attract penalties. Those who can’t pay will see debt pile up — and when it reaches critical mass, the state will take control.

These mechanisms already exist. All they need is the political pretext to activate them.

This is not new. It happened before — in the housing legislation leading up to the Rent Act 1977, which decimated the private rental market. It took over a decade, until the Housing Act 1988 and the introduction of assured shortholds, to even begin to repair the damage.

A housing crisis is the trigger — and you can be certain it will be manufactured just in time for the next election. That’s when the government will promise the ‘entitled majority’ its share of redistributed homes, wrapped up in the promise of reaching its 1.5 million homes target.

This is not the time for silence. Property owners must unify, speak up, and push back — or watch an entire sector be quietly dismantled and handed over to state-friendly operators. The moment to act is now, before your deeds become just another line of code in the government’s property ledger.

Making rental income liable for VAT wouldn’t be a case of landlords choosing to pass something on. If the rental was above whatever threshold was applied then the passing rent would be that amount plus VAT – and not really in the landlords hands, just as it is with trading businesses whereby the company or trader merely becomes an unpaid arm of the state in collecting and remitting the VAT. Landlords would have to significantly reduced their rents to make the VAT inclusive figure match the previous figure and even Rachel from complaints must realise there would be no takers.

Also the £1000 exemption only applies to rent received under that amount (similar to the tax free allowance for those with a minor side hustle in addition to a PAYE job). It’s not an allowance any reader of this forum could claim I’m pretty sure.

And no point in thinking the fact that landlords already pay income tax will stop any additional tax being imposed. Not too far back in time for older landlords to remember Labour’s Unearned Income Surcharge of 15% which obviously encompassed rental income. Whilst abolished by the time I became a landlord in 1990 there is nothing to stop it being reintroduced as a broad brush as it was then or more targeted, say to residential property. (The marginal tax rate was 98% for the wealthiest, 83% Income tax plus 15% for any unearned income – hence anybody who could fled the country).

Remember folks you are getting a special offer on CGT to get out now at 24%. I was paying 28% a pop under Osborne’s surcharged residential property rate of 28%, only benefitting from 24% after Hunt dropped it in Spring 2024. Rachel left it there for residential in her Budget, whilst moving the general rate up to match it. I’d bet a pound to a penny residential will attract another surcharge in the autumn.

Reply to the comment left by Karen Dodd at 19/05/2025 – 11:18
It is a company with shares listed on the London Stock Exchange. Holds residential property and is a Build to Rent player. Pays out dividends to shareholders from the profits meaning you can invest in it rather than owning property directly (obviously returns aren’t guaranteed).

Blair’s real legacy? Engineering a nation of dependants. To lock in Labour’s grip on power, he opened the gates to mass immigration—not for economic need, but to swell the ranks of the welfare-reliant and secure a permanent voting bloc.

Those dependants, desperate to maintain a sense of dignity, have rebranded themselves as the ‘entitled’ generation—demanding more, contributing less, and voting accordingly.

We used to say no taxation without representation. It’s time we flipped that on its head: no representation without taxation. Only then will the balance of power shift back to the strivers, the builders, the net contributors.

Until that happens, the only option left for any government is state-sanctioned confiscation—stripping capital from the productive to fund the ever-growing cost of promises made to the entitled masses.

Reply to the comment left by Person Of The People at 19/05/2025 – 12:40
Yes and what you describe in this thread is a small piece of the Marxist ideology currently being implemented via ‘stakeholder capitalism’.

The unelected European officials and WEF members hold China’s CCP strategy in high regard to control a huge population like China (Or Europe).

Its coming unless something changes quickly and the masses begin to see behind the curtain.

Artificial intelligence of course will be the next primary weapon to prevent this.

So what to do but to keep on talking and spreading the word. Keep using cash. Keep on hoping. What else?

Reply to the comment left by Karen Dodd at 19/05/2025 – 11:18
https://www.graingerplc.co.uk/