Why Property118 Is Changing Its Tone
For more than a decade, Property118 has reported every major change affecting private landlords in the UK: legislation, taxation, finance, and policy. We’ve also become a forum for landlords to share experiences, challenge ideas and, at times, vent their frustrations.
That honesty has always been our strength, but over time, the tone of landlord news in general (not just on our platform) has shifted towards the negative. Every new law is framed as a threat. Every Government consultation feels like an attack. Every article becomes another reason to give up.
It’s easy to see why. Alarmist headlines drive clicks. They play on fear and outrage, which spread faster than reason, yet they also leave readers feeling anxious, angry and powerless.
We want to change that.
From Alarm to Authority
The truth is that most landlords are already professional, compliant and committed to doing things properly. They don’t need more headlines telling them the sky is falling. They need calm analysis, practical guidance and a sense of control.
That’s where Property118 is heading next. Our focus will remain firmly on the facts, but the tone will shift from alarm to authority, from what’s wrong to what you can do about it.
Every article we publish will now follow a simple principle: readers should leave feeling better informed and more in control than when they arrived.
What Will Change
News will stay factual, but calmer. We will continue to report every major development affecting landlords, but with measured language and balanced context.
Commentary will resolve, not inflame. Even when the news is difficult, we will focus on the practical actions responsible landlords can take to protect their position.
Best practice will take centre stage. Case studies and success stories will become the heartbeat of the site, showing how clarity, structure and planning lead to better outcomes.
Dialogue will remain open. The comment section will always have room for honest opinion, but we encourage contributions that share experience and solutions, not despair.
Why It Matters
Landlords face enough uncertainty from regulation and policy change. They don’t need more anxiety from the media that serves them.
By adjusting our tone, we aim to attract and retain the community of landlords who are still building, improving and planning ahead. Those who believe property is a long-term business, not a short-term gamble.
It’s time to move beyond fear.
Property118 will still hold regulators and policymakers to account, but we’ll do it through facts, insight and commercial reasoning – not outrage.
Closing thoughts
If you’ve ever finished a news article about landlords feeling disheartened, we understand. We’ve felt it too.
That’s why we’re resetting the tone. Not because we want to sugar-coat reality, but because we believe that perspective, knowledge and professionalism are the antidotes to fear.
Thank you for being part of this journey. Together, we can bring the focus back to what really matters: stability, structure and long-term success for responsible landlords.
Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Comments
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Every day, landlords who want to influence policy and share real-world experience add their voice here. Your perspective helps keep the debate balanced.
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Member Since June 2013 - Comments: 3248 - Articles: 81
3:49 PM, 23rd November 2025, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Mark Alexander – Founder of Property118 at 23/11/2025 – 15:17
Interesting, I read Millionaire Teacher 2018 when I stopped buying houses. Changed my life.
Interesting u met him.
Member Since May 2024 - Comments: 204
3:54 PM, 23rd November 2025, About 5 months ago
Mark, I didn’t meet him but intend to follow his advice, Investing in the UK is no longer an option. As the owner of this website you have my contact details, please feel free to contact me. Would love to have a chat with you whats app +973 3907 19384
Member Since January 2011 - Comments: 12212 - Articles: 1408
4:07 PM, 23rd November 2025, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Desert Rat at 23/11/2025 – 15:54
He’s certainly a very interesting guy but I decided to only commit a proportion of my liquidity to Vanguard ETF type funds. I do get the logic he applies but personally I like more control.
Member Since May 2024 - Comments: 204
4:12 PM, 23rd November 2025, About 5 months ago
With 15 houses in the UK that I now want to sell and considerable assets outside of the UK I will only be committing about 100k to start off with. It may or may not make any money but at least it is pulling my money out of the UK.
Member Since January 2011 - Comments: 12212 - Articles: 1408
4:19 PM, 23rd November 2025, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Desert Rat at 23/11/2025 – 16:12
What he doesn’t mention in his books is the benefits of a Family Investment Company. As a Canadian Expat I can understand how that bypassed him because UK inheritance tax for nonresident but UK domiciled persons due to their fathers parentage would never have appeared on his radar.
Member Since January 2011 - Comments: 12212 - Articles: 1408
4:36 PM, 23rd November 2025, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Mark Alexander – Founder of Property118 at 23/11/2025 – 16:19
You mentioned earlier that you live in Bahrain.
I could write everything I know about tax in Bahrain on the back of a postage stamp with a big fat crayon.
Is overseas interest tax free there?
If it is, you should have a chat with my IFA.
Member Since May 2024 - Comments: 204
4:47 PM, 23rd November 2025, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Mark Alexander – Founder of Property118 at 23/11/2025 – 16:36
I believe that overseas income is tax free here. would love to have a chat with your IFA. Please fee free to drop him my phone number or email ad. It’s best he contacts me first by Whats App as I normally ignore numbers that I dont know.
Member Since January 2011 - Comments: 12212 - Articles: 1408
4:51 PM, 23rd November 2025, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Desert Rat at 23/11/2025 – 16:47
Please use the page linked below to contact them
https://www.property118.com/where-to-invest-if-i-sell-my-rentals/
Member Since December 2021 - Comments: 161
11:17 AM, 24th November 2025, About 5 months ago
I sincerely hope we can, somehow, put a positive spin on the future of our industry, after 35 years, I’ve seen an awful lot of changes, by multiple Govt’s. I’ve done my damnedest to remain legal.
Whilst I’m theoretically pleased to see the back of S21, as it will force honesty into the whole eviction process, but that only works if all parties get honest, legal support from the Courts. Which I doubt.
I am dreading the ombudsman, the database and council licencing when it comes to my area. Lets face it, the only people that don’t hate landlords, are other landlords, this is all going to be abused, especially against small landlords like me.
I have already decided that the first vindictive penalty or Rent Repayment Order I get, will be the trigger for every single tenant being served with a “S8 to sell”, notice. And I will announce it in Court if that’s where I’m dragged.
Decision is made, I’m selling as they become vacant, it’s just getting too toxic, and to be honest, it’s only the CGT liability that has prevented me starting earlier. I can’t bare the thought of leaving this mess to my kids, if I should die early.
Member Since January 2025 - Comments: 91
12:37 PM, 24th November 2025, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Smiffy at 24/11/2025 – 11:17
All very laudable if viewed through the lens of conventional economics, but that is not where we are, nor where we are heading. What we are witnessing is an ideological shift—one designed to transfer wealth away from those this government and its supporters believe have unjustly profited from the labour, sacrifice, and exclusion of those pushed out of the housing market and into renting.
Taxation captures headlines and loses elections because it is perceived to hit everyone. Regulation, however, operates in the shadows. It does not attract front-page scrutiny, yet it can be targeted with surgical precision. And this time the crosshairs are firmly on landlords, who have effectively been turned into unpaid housing officers—forced to absorb occupational and capital risk, carry escalating compliance burdens, and face draconian penalties for even marginal missteps.
History tells us what happens when ideological politics collide with the property industry.
The Rent Act 1977 imposed repairing obligations, rent control, and handed tenants the right to buy at values that had already been gutted by the very regulations imposed on landlords. The Housing Act 1988 rolled those measures back, but it took another decade before the rental market re-built its infrastructure and became functional again.
Look further back still. After the Second World War, the government embraced a form of command economics—loosely inspired by the Soviet Union’s high wartime production numbers. Only when the human cost of that experiment became unarguable did the UK begin to pivot back towards a market-driven system, and it was not until Thatcher’s election in 1979 that we finally dismantled the last remnants of that approach. Power cuts, mass walkouts, and the famous warning—“never buy a car built on a Friday”—were the visible symptoms of a system in decline.
There is much to be positive about in the property industry, but optimism without political change is misplaced. None of the structural issues can be resolved without removing this government and its ideological programme. That will not be achieved by simply learning the new rules, adapting to them, or striving to become ‘better landlords’. Those rules were born nearly fifty years ago with the explicit purpose of prising assets away from private owners. Consider the origins of the National Trust: large estates were effectively confiscated through punitive taxation and handed over “for the nation”, while their former owners were relegated to a handful of rooms in the east wing.
The conditions are now aligning for a genuine, organised protest movement—one capable of driving political change. And realistically, that is the only mechanism through which landlords will regain a meaningful voice with this government.