Buy-to-let tax guide: Will Section 24 mortgage interest rules put you in the red?

Martina LeesTaxLeave a Comment

Thanks to the Great Buy-to-let Bashing, mortgage interest payments – a legitimate cost of doing business – are no longer tax deductible. The innocuous-sounding “Section 24” tax rule was billed as a way to give first-time buyers a leg up against investors. (In 2015, the then Chancellor also slapped an extra 3% on stamp duty on all buy-to- let purchases. … Read More

Why we should scrap leasehold property

Martina LeesPress coverage, Property marketLeave a Comment

Lisa and Ray Chapple, aged 34 and 35, bought their three-bedroom terrace off plan only seven years ago, but say they would now “struggle to sell”. That’s because their house in Taylor Wimpey’s Speakman Gardens scheme, in Liverpool, is leasehold with a clause stating that the ground rent of £250 a year will double every decade for 50 years — … Read More

Sunday Times coverage: How to let your spare room

Martina LeesLettings, Press coverageLeave a Comment

Looking for tax-free rental income? Follow these rules and it’s elementary Forget Rigsby. The typical owner who lets out their spare room is no longer a miserly live-in landlord like the one from the 1970s sitcom Rising Damp — fiftysomething and long since separated, spying on his bedsit tenants. Nowadays, they’re likely to be younger and struggling to afford the … Read More

Why new tax rules could put landlords in the red

Martina LeesLettings, Press coverageLeave a Comment

If you are a buy-to-let owner, a dartboard sporting George Osborne’s face might be high on your Christmas wish list. And if it isn’t, you are probably one of the hundreds of thousands of small landlords still unaware of how they will be hit by a tax change introduced by the former chancellor. Vanessa Warwick, a landlord and co-founder of … Read More

The Sunday Times coverage: Oops, we did it again

Martina LeesPress coverageLeave a Comment

Martina Lees shares her top tips for Britain’s growing army of accidental landlords I blame my husband. When Daniel and I got married — intentionally — we ended up letting his bachelor pad in southwest London — accidentally. It helped us to travel the world, start a business and buy our first family home. It also made us landlords. There … Read More