MuayThai18

Yeah thanks for reminding me 😂

I debated to myself about whether to air my family's dirty laundry here, but If you want to talk about 'taking more than a fair share of the inheritance': A few years ago my other aunt and her husband built an extension to my grandparents home so they could all live together. It cost near enough 300k. It was verbally agreed upon death of my grandparents my aunt and her husband would get the 300k it cost to build before anything else was distributed. Fair enough. A couple weeks ago my aunts husband produced a legal document for my grandparents to sign. A loan to the tune of 300k, with no repayments schedule, but annual interest accruing at the house price index. Payable on death of my last grandparent. For anyone that doesn't understand the gravity of that, usually with loans you pay off some of the capital each month so the interest gets smaller, well with no payments being made interest would only get larger. To make matters worse my grandparents fork out for all of the bills of the house. It's as if he lent my grandparents money so they could build him a house to live in for free. Oh and he gets a return on that 'loan' Before anyone asks, yes he's a 'property investor'. No my grandparents didn't sign anything after I looked at the document. Yeah I might be in trouble with the police because I threatened to chin him the other day lol

????

I deal with my grandparents' tax affairs. I originally did a rough calculation just to give an idea of the CGT position, nothing more nothing less. From this info I just explained affordability. I wish I hadn't got involved in the first place but at the end of the day my grandparents necks are on the line for the tax, not hers

My aunt, a single parent with 3 kids, works full time as a teacher at a private school. She earns 40k a year. Historically she rented with an alcoholic ex-husband. When they eventually split my grandparents bought her a house on a buy to let so she had somewhere to live and rented it to her at cost so she only had to pay the interest on the mortgage. It's been a few years now and she has finally divorced her husband, and has the idea of home ownership in her head. She wants to sell where she currently lives, take all of the equity and buy a detached house on her own for herself and her kids. Well the issue is capital gains tax. I'm a chartered accountant myself, 2 exams away from being a chartered tax advisor. It's fair to say I know a bit about capital gains tax, I deal with it regularly. I did a small rough calculation on how much tax she would have to pay (because my grandparents own the property) and what would be left over to buy a property by herself - assuming my grandparents were willing to just gift her all of the deposit and the equity leftover after tax. I then explained she will only get 4.5x her salary on a mortgage, and combine that with all of the equity she could afford a house that costs 300k, which is 200k short of her dream home of 500k. She has just accused me of trying to hold her back in her life, I'm 'dividing the family', I'm lying about the tax and I don't know what I'm talking about. Her current boyfriend suggested she talk to a financial advisor (like he is going to know anything about tax). I took great offense at her attack on my character, and argued my case. It just didn't seem to get through. She stormed off crying. Tldr; HPI breaks down families

Just went with the missus to a local restaurant to try out this half price nonsense. The burger was £17.50, half price would've been a normal price. Except we didn't get that far, we got up and left 25 mins after being seated and given menus because no one came to order our drinks and or food

So today I was preparing company accounts for a property investor. He bought a house in Nov 18 for 200k with 75%/150k mortgage. In July 2019 he had it revalued at 340k and remortgaged at 75%. He basically got 100k cash after fees. What did he do with this 100k? Deposit on another property.... Bearing in mind he spent 10k sprucing the place up, where have you ever heard of a house increasing in 140k in just under 2 years? It's made me realise the mortgage brokers, surveyors, solicitors, and everyone else involved in the chain is dirty as hell. As long as he makes his monthly repayments the lender won't care and property only ever goes up so it won't be problem???? This game is rigged. It's like a massive Ponzi scheme

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. Price is driven by demand, not the other way around. Demand increases when price decreases. Lack of demand will eventually drive the price down, the trouble is government intervention. They are doing everything they can to prop up prices right now, which is a flawed approach but they have to be seen to be doing something. However the market always corrects itself. When the lack of demand drives prices lower, the most inefficient suppliers with the lowest margins will leave the market. Again, the problem is government intervention - it lets the inefficient suppliers stay in the market and compete

This could all be solved by getting rid of principal private residence relief, and entrepreneurs relief on furnished holiday letting. I had a landlord client that sold a property last year. He lived in it for a few years, then let it for a few years, then it was a holiday let for the last few years of ownership. Without PPR, letting relief, and ER he would've paid 30 odd grand in capital gains tax. With the available reliefs he paid 4 grand. He was happy, but I felt somewhat pissed off submitting that tax return. Nowhere else in tax do you get such great tax reliefs

This was actually a thing in the 90s - Gordon Brown got rid of it. MIRAS it was called.

As far as I know in England you can back out at the last minute if you get cold feet. In Scotland however once you've made an offer you are committed to buying it. Glad I'm English lol

I'm so excited for the impending crash. There's a one bed cluster house I've had my eye on for about 9 months. It was originally on the market a year ago for 170k. Got dropped to 155k back in January. I think I might offer 110k just to piss off the estate agent and buyer. They will probably give in soon enough and I'll snap it up

So I've got a mate that's an economist and he says as a nation, British people spend 1.25x more than we save It's only a matter of time before it all goes pop And it's not a case of 'if', it's a case of 'when'

I agree with everyone here that Branson shouldn't be bailed out by the government. However. You cannot attack his business model. In the airline industry margins are tight and competition is fierce, so how are you expected to make any money? Simple - you grow into your profits. The fundamental rule of business is this: as long as you can pay your creditors you can continue to operate. With that rule in mind what do you do when you're in a rut and cash flow is bad? You grow out of it. You work on lower margins with higher volumes so you can make just enough cash to pay your creditors at the end of the month. And all is well. The wheel keeps on spinning. People get jobs, lenders make their money, profit is made for investors (on paper), lower prices for consumers, government gets their slice and the operation just keeps ticking over until disaster strikes and you're in the position you're in right now. You can argue highly geared operations are a false economy but I don't see anyone complaining when return flights to a European country are under 100 quid.

If they've received small businesses rate relief (and as a result not paid business rates) in the past then they will be entitled to a 10k grant. That is dependent on actually being registered with the council. The entitlement is entirely dependent on if you got a letter back in March detailing the rateable value and relief that was due. I suspect most won't have a rateable value and so won't be entitled to anything

Chartered Accountant here, HMRC only really open enquiries/investigations when an individual is reported. The woman who evaded tax for 10 years on her BTLs was most likely reported by some disgruntled tenant. If you want to get someone on HMRCs radar; multiple, separate reports from different people will do the trick. Make sure to mention the person brags about not paying tax, but drives around in the latest range rover and goes on holiday 4 times a year. They will get investigated pronto. I'm a mandated reporter - I've reported many people in my time, they always end up getting investigated. Just takes time as HMRC are rather slow.

Brilliant. I'm using this next opportunity I get

I can remember my grandad telling me how he bought his first house in the 80s boom and it almost doubled in value after 1 year

Long term lurker here, just made an account so I could post this: My mate works in a hedgefund and his chief of economic research predicted last week a 10-15% drop in GDP and 35% drop in house prices. I was thrilled to hear about the house price drop but we are headed for a massive recession much much worse than 2008. I was a teen in 2008 and remember how hard things were - my dad (a joiner) was out of work for a long time. He and my mum aren't working right now and I'm not sure how long that will be for. I'm hoping my job should be fairly safe but I'm certain both my parents will be out work for the foreseeable future which ruins my plans of buying my own place since I'll be supporting them financially Good news is all property investors are going to lose a considerable amount of money and I'm jumping with joy. As an accountant I deal with them on a daily basis and most of them are gluttonous, entitled so and so's. They don't actually make that much money but act like bobby big ********. Most recent was a client that 'flipped a house' in the space of a year and made and net profit of 5 grand. She spent 180 on the house and 50 on renovations. I can't begin to imagine the headache she had for 50 grand of renovations all to make such a shit return on investment

Long time lurker here, just wanted to let you all know the following: My mate works at a hedge fund in London, his chief economic researcher has predicted a 35% drop in house prices over the next 18 months and a 15% drop in GDP. We are headed for a deep recession. Hoping my job should be fairly safe (accountant) because I was a teen in 2008 and my dad who is a joiner was out of work for a long time - I remember how hard things were.