Btl Scum Regrouping And On The Offensive. -- Merged

[Neverwhere]

It's always been apparent but this week I've been staggered by just how unreactive some of the buy to letters are for ones who claim to possess such business acumen.

First the mad panic to incorporate despite months and months of clear warnings, now on 118 there's NW Landlord (who's a regular poster so can't have been unaware of the situation) writing a letter to the Telegraph to urge them to campaign against Clause 24. It's law ffs! You've said you might need to sell so crack on. What the hell are they still messing about writing letters for (and 'publishing' articles, which is Ros speak for posting on a forum).

This character is writing his letter on behalf of 5 landlords who own 500 properties between them, one of which owns 350 and apparently still not incorporated. Mugs. Total mugs.

They almost certainly can't incorporate. It's highly unlikely that such large portfolio landlords, who presumably spent a good deal of time building up their portfolios during the exceedinly loose lending run up to the financial crisis, could afford the costs associated with incorporation or would meet the current lending criteria for corporate buy-to-let even if they could, let alone service the higher interest rates and higher tax burden associated with a corporate portfolio (they like to harp on about corporations retaining finance cost deductibility but often conveniently ignore that they would have to pay additional taxes beyond corporation tax in order to extract any form of income from the portfolio).

Additionally - and this is extremely hypothetical because such totally mad bonkers portfolios are both shrinkingly rare and so risky that it's extremely, extremely unlikely they would have even the smallest hope of legitimately incorporating - once you're into really excessively, monstrously large and aggressively leveraged portfolios then there may be some risk that future interest rate rises or remortgaging difficulties could take their finance costs past the new £2M per annum de minimis threshold (h/t Mr Wild) for corporate deductibility of finance costs, limiting it (presumably only above the threshold) to 30% of gross earnings.

For instance, if someone managed to incorporate a batcrap crazy portfolio of 350 averagely priced houses at a portfolio LTV of 75% they would not be able to deduct all of their finance costs if their interests payments exceeded 3.87%. Alternatively, if an incorporated group were to acquire an absolutely astronomically insane portfolio of 750 averagely priced houses at a 50% portfolio LTV then they would not be able to deduct all of their finance costs if their interest payments exceeded 2.71%. These things are just not going to happen.

[Neverwhere]

A non-profit making socially useless enterprise that generates 80k per annum interest to a bank that created the loans out of nothing. These articles only serve to highlight what a massive scam and scandal buy to let really is and how the taxpayer is being gouged by it.

Truesay

Last few Tele articles have made me wonder if he has become Agent Dyson, HPC provocateur

Maybe he's one of these anarchists that we've been hearing so much about?

[Bland Unsight]

Fair play to them, up until now it has all worked out. I just pray that it does turn on them. Most haven't just stooped after making a bit and diversified their assets (like any sensible investor would) they've just piled back in on BTL.

(Emphasis added)

Total rubbish. For swathes of the country, including Haig's beloved Knowsley, we can see with the benefit of hindsight that if your plan was to buy and hold then it stopped working in 2004. By her own admission she makes nothing on the income vs expenses side of things, and the Land Registry data confirms that anything bought after 2004 is showing a capital loss.

[Bland Unsight]

Their wailing now is simply the realisation (mostly subconscious still) that they are now the quarry.

+1

The denial is strong with Team BTL. One of the ironies of all the talk of jealousy that they direct at their critics is that for many of them outside London and the South East, BTL as an investment wasn't working out before the taxation changes, and after the taxation changes it will be a bust, (and most of them still haven't even reached denial regarding what the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision are planning on serving up as desert).

[Neverwhere]

I read that letter from NW landlord.

Staggering just how self centred he is.

Calls GO, that 'Idiot in London'

Blatant attack on me and my family.'

POOR ME,

ME, ME, ME,

Cannot see how his greed has blighted the lives of so many.

Just wants young, hard working families to give HIM their money.

Burn in Hell you bastared

NW Landlord 03/10/2015 at 15:18

I have just had a thought the government own ukar which holds a massive stock of buy to let mortgages of portfolio landlords. If they make it unaffordable to private landlords repossessions are inevitable due to a lot of that stock in neg equity I know cause I have some as most of u probably do. The government could take control of these houses as they effectively own them thus becoming the landlord and cutting out the private landlord. They already have a company managing repossessed stock now this could be the explanation as to why they are sabotaging the PRS to cut us out and become a social landlord it would make sense wouldn’t it and would get support from general public due to negative press we get

Funny you should mention that as I've just been reviewing Richard Pym's evidence to the TSC banking crisis inquiry, (Pym was the B&B Chairman when it hit the rocks).

Q363

Jim Cousins: Bradford & Bingley had a very attractive set of terms for the end of the fixed rate deals for buy-to-let. Is it the intention that the nationalised Bradford & Bingley will honour those terms?

Mr Pym: The standard terms for buy-to-let mortgages was at the time you reach the end of your incentive period the customer moved to paying base rate plus 1.75%, so with a 3% base rate that means the majority but not all of the buy-to-let customers will pay 4.75%. That is certainly an attractive rate.

Q364

Jim Cousins: So we have a situation in which not only does the Government now have quite a significant stake in the whole future of buy-to-let in the UK, but it is going to honour the arrangements that Bradford & Bingley made so that the refinancing of those deals is being done on a very attractive basis.

Mr Pym: The customers have that benefit in their contract and they are entitled to maintain it. It is not an issue over which we can vary it or, frankly, would wish to vary it. It would be unfair to customers to take away any benefit that is enshrined in their original lending agreement.

Q365

Jim Cousins: Yes. There is an interesting issue there to consider: both the public expenditure and housing market consequences of that arrangement.

Mr Pym: But at the time those were quite wide margins, and there are plenty of residential lenders—that is a normal home mortgage for an owner/occupier—with what are called “go-to” rates of less than 1% above base rate; so this buy-to-let margin is wider. The rate of 4.75% might seem an attractive rate to the customer, but there are plenty of residential mortgages which would now be less than 4%.

Q366

Jim Cousins: It does seem odd, though, does it not, that at this particular point in the housing market we have the Government, through Bradford & Bingley, offering an element of public subsidy compared to other actors in the buy-to-let market in respect of buy-to-let mortgages?

Source

This is the reason why the BTL gang have not refinanced out of Mortgage Express. When the original deals ended they kicked across not to SVRs but to base rate +1.75%, so 2.25%. Nice work if you can get it.

As many of the BTL tw@ts at PovertyLater have enjoyed a dead bank's promises being kept by the Treasury their ingratitude to George Osborne beggars belief.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. If the loans are sold on without the ability to hike the rates then you'll have to sell well below book value. If UKAR use the decision in the West Brom case to use similar in extremis clauses to hike the Mortgage Express rates then obviously you could sell the book at its nominal value. UKAR would take the political heat for the rate hike and then sell the book on to a buyer who would enjoy the benefit of being able to charge a market rate for the lending.

So, what you you do if you were a Chancellor trying to balance the books and you'd already burned your bridges with the BTL gang (and thus would suffer no further political costs for continuing the brutal beat down)?

Calculation on the back of a fag packet, with suitable health warning. If we assume that all of the £18.5bn B&B BTL book is on the base +1.75% deal and would be financed at 4.5% if they had to re-finance to a market rate, then every year these BTL borrowers are enjoying a £420million subsidy, arranged by the Treasury. And they vilify Osborne. Talk about ingratitude!

Continuing the fag packet calculation, that's about £2.5bn over the five years of the Coalition and the first year of the present government. Osborne has arguably subsidised the BTL sector to the tune of £2.5bn. You ungrateful BTL b@stards!

Not suggesting that it's anything but a coincidence, but the amount that the banks are bitching about having to kick to the FSCS to pay interest on the Treasury loans is also £400m a year, according to Sky

[Wahoo]

Mrs Haig said: “I thought I was helping people with this business, but I’ve ruined my own life by taking a decision which I thought would be good. And then the Government decided landlords were the devil.”

Hhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Burn baby burn

[Bland Unsight]

Mrs Haig said: “I thought I was helping people with this business, but I’ve ruined my own life by taking a decision which I thought would be good. And then the Government decided landlords were the devil.”

Hhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Burn baby burn

> Run Property118 mode

> Install OPEN_LETTER_DELUSION.ffs

Dear Mrs Haig,

The taxation changes in the Summer Budget which are compelling you to incorporate do not affect all landlords. They only affect landlords who have large mortgages and the larger your mortgage interest payments relative to the rental income, the worse things get. It is simply an error to describe Clause 24 as an attack on landlords.

Your problem is that you paid too much for a bunch of shit houses and you financed the purchase with borrowed money. This was a stupid thing to do. To the extent that Osborne has attacked your business model he is attacking idiocy not landlordism. Sell now, sell everything,

Regards,

B. Unsight.

[Byron]

Can I just add

Ha! x infinity

[Pop321]

I read that letter from NW landlord.

Staggering just how self centred he is.

Calls GO, that 'Idiot in London'

Blatant attack on me and my family.'

POOR ME,

ME, ME, ME,

Cannot see how his greed has blighted the lives of so many.

Just wants young, hard working families to give HIM their money.

Burn in Hell you bastared

The entitlement and self centred view on 118 has been the most revealing of the things I have read in the past 9 months.

The discriminatory claims I believe illustrate this further. They think GO has looked up NW Landlord or the infamous Ros' details on his little computer and specifically and deliberately set a policy just to impact on THEM.

It's not f&)7ing about THEM.

If only they could look at the world from another viewpoint.

On another note - 17 houses in Liverpool and no profit. FFS. Stupid and entitled. Poor me I am going to be 'omeless (oh, the irony) - she would rent - but their ain't no gain in it.

[MississippiJohnHurt]

On another note - 17 houses in Liverpool and no profit. FFS. Stupid and entitled. Poor me I am going to be 'omeless (oh, the irony) - she would rent - but their ain't no gain in it.

She could be homeless or - even worse - have to rent.

[The Knimbies who say No]

That sounds like a tax dodge pure and simple. It's certainly not a business. They seem to be intentionally generating no profit at all in order to pay no taxes at all (they could always sell up to 70% of the portfolio and generate a strong, unencumbered rental income). Actual businesses look to increase profits from the main activity of the business, not minimise them.

Whatever they would have us believe that looks very much like a capital gains play - where else did that 30% of equity in the portfolio come from? - and therefore an investment and not a trade, and it should therefore attract no tax breaks at all in relation to finance costs, in line with other, more productive and socially beneficial, investments.

It's also very clearly not serving any productive function for society and not increasing the supply of housing at all. Not one of their properties was built to satisfy their demand for people farming. Every single one appears to have been taken out of council use/owner occupation. Those properties already existed and were already capable of functioning perfectly well as housing for people without these middlemen attempting to skim off of the top and collect state subsidies in the form of housing benefit and highly favourable tax treatment.

Brilliant article. Rams the greed, entitlement and poor financial planning home in spades. Very telling also that it does not appear to be open to public comment!

It's just disgusting how some people feel it is acceptable to screw over their own neighbourhoods like this too, not that it makes it any better if it were other peoples areas right enough. Seventeen fracking houses FFS.

[Bland Unsight]

Was reflecting on the way in which Shirleyann Haig has been hooked up with the Telegraph by PovertyLater (via the NLA it appears) and it occurred to me that we haven't heard anything from Connie Cheuk for a while. She was 'profiled' by Richard Dyson in August 2015, and whilst the PovertyLater forum software suggests that she is still reading PovertyLater she hasn't posted since September 2015, though the final post was quite a thing

Connie Cheuk says:

19/09/2015 at 15:56

Reply to the comment left by “Harold Levine” at “19/09/2015 – 12:47“:

And where do you think the “government deposits” will come from? Taxing landlords? With the amount required to implement the legislation, there wouldn’t be enough to fund this so expect YOUR tax bill to rise.

I don’t need the government to care about my history, but it ought to care about landlords as their businesses strengthened the economy in two recessions and provided housing when council stock dried up. Councils were at a point of buying back (using tax payers’ money further) stock they had sold with discounts in the first place! Landlords got off their backsides to get their businesses started, whilst millions in the country continued watching Jeremy Kyle.

If the government is not satisfied with my business or the fact that I got off my behind to get it going so as to be able to offer my PROFITS to be taxed, then I’ll make myself a basic rate tax payer and see how much they can tax me then. It’ll be nice to give up the day job anyway; who wants to work like a dog sometimes fourteen hours a day and Sundays, and still have tenants and maintenance to worry about as well? No day job, no huge amounts of tax for the government, downsize my own home so I don’t have to clean for lodgers and buy loo rolls in bulk special offer packs so it looks like I have runs every few weeks. Then, if my business doesn’t work out, I’ll have to declare bankruptcy, so I may as well stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle – see what the attraction is to keep so many people enthralled at home – and I’ll probably rent from a corporation, but that’s ok because the government will foot the bill, oops, I mean the tax payer, before they give me a deposit to buy it – yippee!

(Emphasis added)

How many lodgers are there? Still, the shame of buying a large pack of loo rolls would be a terrible thing. I always ask if I can only buy half of a two-pack so as to leave anyone watching with the firm impression that I'm never troubled by the "runs". Obviously, this does nothing for my reputation as a frugal pursuer of discounts, but life is all about compromise.

Edited March 20, 2016 by Idlewild

[Mancghirl]

Was reflecting on the way in which Shirleyann Haig has been hooked up with the Telegraph by PovertyLater (via the NLA it appears) and it occurred to me that we haven't heard anything from Connie Cheuk for a while. She was 'profiled' by Richard Dyson in August 2015, and whilst the PovertyLater forum software suggests that she is still reading PovertyLater she hasn't posted since September 2015, though the final post was quite a thing

(Emphasis added)

How many lodgers are there? Still, the shame of buying a large pack of loo rolls would be a terrible thing. I always ask if I can only buy half of a two-pack so as to leave anyone watching with the firm impression that I'm never troubled by the "runs". Obviously, this does nothing for my reputation as a frugal pursuer of discounts, but life is all about compromise.

I note Cheuk uses the old 'property is my pension'. She is the same age as me, does the same job. My pension is my pension.

Unless she's opted out of the TPS and sunk it all into BTL. Now that would be a very poor call.

Edited March 20, 2016 by Mancghirl

[Bland Unsight]

I note Cheuk uses the old 'property is my pension'. She is the same age as me, does the same job. My pension is my pension.

Unless she's opted out of the TPS and sunk it all into BTL. Now that would be a very poor call.

I'd never really considered that. As she's been teaching for twenty years (according to the article) she'll have escaped the worst of the pension changes and be able to draw a good teacher's pension at 60. Would be pretty grim for her if she has bailed out of the TPS, but I can't see why she would have. The other thing that strikes me looking back over the article is the change in what the Telegraph are willing to offer as a BTL horror story. In August 2015 it was the nightmare of going from making £12,000 per annum after tax to making £9,000 per annum after tax on the BTLs. Hardly the end of the world.

Where do you stand on the loo rolls side of things? Is the discount worth the stigma?

[Mancghirl]

I'd never really considered that. As she's been teaching for twenty years (according to the article) she'll have escaped the worst of the pension changes and be able to draw a good teacher's pension at 60. Would be pretty grim for her if she has bailed out of the TPS, but I can't see why she would have. The other thing that strikes me looking back over the article is the change in what the Telegraph are willing to offer as a BTL horror story. In August 2015 it was the nightmare of going from making £12,000 per annum after tax to making £9,000 per annum after tax on the BTLs. Hardly the end of the world.

Where do you stand on the loo rolls side of things? Is the discount worth the stigma?

I'm a career changer, so have only 15 years' service so far, pension changes have made the deal slightly worse, but she'll still be getting a decent lump sum plus pension based on career average earnings. If she's made Head of Department, she should have no worries about her pension. If she's spent her whole time pissing about on Rightmove and staying on main scale, she'll still be fine.

Its just basic common sense to buy your lavatory paper in bulk. I have a stash in the utility room, along with a sack of Yorkshire Tea bags. Costco is your friend, people. I'm completely prepared for the complete and utter breakdown of society after HPC.

[Venger]

you'd think the Tele would know to stop by now, eh? The article is a perfect advert for the changes as it exposes the rank stupidity of those who have charged themselves with the weighty responsibility of providing housing for others. Their 'strategy' is based on a reverance of maximal debt, and a basic ignorance of the consequences of their actions.

To make matters worse, the family are immediately going to be hit by the stamp duty tax hike when it comes in at the start of April, as they are currently renting their own home – and are wanting to buy.

Because they already own property, they will have to pay the 3pc stamp duty surcharge.

Mrs Haig said: “I’ve changed jobs so it’s been hard to get a mortgage. I’ve got the kids in school and I’m ready to buy now – but it’s going to be a struggle to get it through before April 1.

“One day late and I’ll have a tax bill of £11,000. We can’t afford that so we’d have to pull out. We could be left homeless if someone else wants to buy it.”

Like a BTLer, maybe?

Sell them all, you idiots.

17 BTLer... How do you think tenants fare when their BTL landlords want/have to sell.... a few weeks notice. It's the life eh. Homeless indeed....

What tickled me was the house they want to buy, despite all their 17 properties and tax concerns, is being sold by a BTLer who - as I recall the post (can't find it now) 'is selling because of Clause 24'.

Perhaps just wait and see if seller can find a buyer.. accept a lower amount? Although depends on being positioned to buy... and not having financial headaches with other properties, imo.

It's the same as with SDLT - technically paid by the buyer, economically worn by the seller.

My husband and I decided that we wanted to give something back so we set up a property investment company called .......

It may be hard work but it’ll be a good investment for our future, we thought!

http://www.property118.com/why-we-should-get-ready-to-really-say-no-to-george/82693/comment-page-4/#comment-72107

[Venger]

Its just basic common sense to buy your lavatory paper in bulk. I have a stash in the utility room, along with a sack of Yorkshire Tea bags. Costco is your friend, people. I'm completely prepared for the complete and utter breakdown of society after HPC.

Opposite for me. Great times ahead. Owner-side has £Trillions in equity. What they going to do...moan us to death.

BTL is a proxy war for a HPC take-down there... at the higher end of market, imo.

There's a lot of HPCers who need a wakeup to who is actually carrying the risks in this market. ... less so the banks.

27 January 2014

UK housing stock value climbs to £5,205,000,000,000 but the gap between the haves and the have nots grows

Total value of UK’s housing stock now £5.2tn, from £3.6tn in 2003

Total value rose £186bn in 2013, of which >£100bn in London

10 wealthiest London boroughs worth 9% more than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined

Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea are together worth >£200 billion, 15% more than Wales

Since 2008:

Private rented sector has risen £275bn to almost £1 trillion

Wealth of 8.4 million unmortgaged owner occupiers has risen £86 billion to £1.8 trillion

But mortgaged owner occupied sector down -£172bn, an average fall of £11,000 per mortgaged household

Most indebted owner occupiers are in South are Slough (75% debt) and Newham (76%), but Blackpool (79% debt) and Burnley (80%) top the list of most indebted locations

The total value of the UK’s housing stock has risen from £3.6 trillion to £5.2 trillion over the past ten years, but the balance of housing wealth continues to tilt from North to South and becomes ever more concentrated in the hands of mortgage free homeowners, according to new data from international real estate adviser, Savills.

Edited March 20, 2016 by Venger

[frederico]

Those numbers mean nothing.

[Venger]

They do for me. Markets move at the margin. Think it's worth pointing out not everyone is up against it in this housing market. Lot of housing wealth on the owner side, that can handle HPC, without any real impact on the banks. Got no intention of taking a jumbo mortgage to pay these prices myself.

We seem to be in general agreement on a few things.

Mortgages are a liability after all, makes you a slave,

Banks are supposed to have been recapitalising for years now so they can with stand losses, they seem to be just as bad as ever though.

I'm a boomer and I ain't rich. There were no university tuition fees back then but doesn't mean myself nor anyone I knew could afford actually to go. Tired of being told that I was born between dates x and y and therefore deserve to be in someone's cross hairs.

Same here,its bad management to blame, half house prices and rents and everyone's happy. (Apart from a few bankrupt landlords)

[frederico]

They do for me. Markets move at the margin. Think it's worth pointing out not everyone is up against it in this housing market. Lot of housing wealth on the owner side, that can handle HPC, without any real impact on the banks. Got no intention of taking a jumbo mortgage to pay these prices myself.

We seem to be in general agreement on a few things.

OK, sorry, they mean nothing because they are a fictitious value that could never be realised. Yet the wealth measure of the economy is based on them.

I own most of my house and wouldn't be happier than to see a 50% drop.

[Venger]

Well you know yourself then frederico. Always good to be around owners who look at the market that way, without ego wrapped up in value of their home.

.... I don't buy it for one second. You did what you did because you thought taking on Housing Benefit tenants would lead to the Life of Riley.

I'll freely admit I've made plenty of investment mistakes. Every time I do I pick myself up, understand what I did wrong, learn from it and plough on. I've never once gone to the newspapers as I don't see how complaining about it is going to make any difference to my plight.

Why would she be left homeless? Surely she didn't take on £80,000 per annum of debt repayments, in a low interest rate environment, without significant personal skills that could turn a high salary, if for example interest rates rose or policy changed. Oh, she did...

Free hint on how to avoid homelessness:

1. Get a job

2. Rent from a landlord 'who just wants to help people'

It's worked ok for me up until now. What you don't want to work and instead want to just live off the back of others graft...

You're on very good form today.

[Venger]

"He hopes that political ambition might prompt an about-turn by George Osborne, who will need the votes of mainly Conservative landlord investors.

I think he might change his mind if he wants to be Prime Minister, said Mr Grant "

Think Mr Grant missed the part where George Osborne has actively decided that the youth vote was more important than the votes of a relatively small number of natural Tories who, in the current picture, have no alternative vote.

Mr Grant needs to think of the net position if Osborne successfully annihilates the BTL to win a decent share of the youth vote: He will have taken votes from his only electoral rival, at the expense of losing some to nomark parties.

Unless of course Mr Grant and his fabled band of Tory voting entrepreneurs want to vote for Corbyn or his successor. I'm not sure they will be keen to return to the halcyon days of BTL though.

As I think Neverwhere said the other day, the BTLers great folly was to not even consider that politics matter, which is a very bad move when you are blithely f****** around with the living conditions of generations.

Their wailing now is simply the realisation (mostly subconscious still) that they are now the quarry.

But i think the fun will really start when the majority of them come to a conscious realisation that it will make good politics for any side wanting to be elected to do exactly the same as Osborne. That it's not just one man 'betraying' them or whatever absurd phrase is being used this week. It's simply good politics.

I reckon that a widespread, conscious dawning will happen by the end of this year amongst the majority of BTL. The only question remaining is whether individuals are smart money or dumb. The smart will be leaving now, the dumb, Mr Grant evidently included, will still be thinking that Osborne has accidentally done something which has alienated his friendly core voters.

Really enjoyed that. Not sure about the dawning this year, but we appear to be on course for it. Although I can tell you also realise they are slow to come to terms with how things have been playing out. Really significant changes, to what they thought was the lasting reality.

Added to which I know Serpico (1992-95) never accepted he had any fault for the position he found himself in... decade+ later. Yet it doesn't really matter, because the entire system moved against him, and the house fell to a young neurosurgeon at a much lower price. (Just as Serpy had no qualms buying the house originally, many years previously, from someone HMRC had claimed the assets of, to recover taxes owed. Serpy didn't pay that 'victim' any thought... it's a market.).

Certainly there will be more nagging doubts on the BTL side, but the majority of market participants tend to hold in all the way... in denial, but perhaps some may be forced. (In a bear market, the vast, vast majority, does nothing, and gets stuck holding assets with low or non-existent valuations.)

Perhaps the smarter ones will exit and get this market moving, closer to prices more people can afford. Some may be trapped (CGT) for they never had any intention to sell (HPI+++) and spent a lot on the way.

In effect, the paradigm or worldview that accompanies a culture is like a software program. It enables people to process information by suggesting an underlying pattern of reality in which information fits together. [..]What seems to "make sense" may actually be a delusion arising from a "blind spot" or defect in the local paradigm of understanding. [..] All paradigms are incomplete. [..] Any mindset will take adequate account of the facts that are relevant in the economic and political setting in which it emerged. [..] Facts that are economic irrelevant and do not fit comfortably into an existing worldwide view or paradigm will generally be misinterpreted or ignored. [..] An existing paradigm is seldom dispelled by evidence alone. As Keith Thomas has written, "Such systems of belief possess a resilience which makes them virtually immune to external argument." A people whose culture grossly misinterprets certain facts will not necessarily reason their way to a more encompassing worldview until forced to do so by the brunt of economic necessity or military defeat. Reason does not alter values/beliefs.

[Venger]

Mrs Haig said: I thought I was helping people with this business, but Ive ruined my own life by taking a decision which I thought would be good. And then the Government decided landlords were the devil.

She thought wrong...

Sorry... I always hear it in this voice now, with the laugh.

BTLers made their own choices (although still a long way to go until anything is proven towards hpc outlooks).

[Bland Unsight]

James Fraser says:

20/03/2016 at 23:21

The issue of the BICT has driven me mad with frustration and over-thinking for some time. The last few days have been hellish.

Who to believe? Mark Smith as a barrister, or the mortgage conditions? I’ve got 5 or 6 with TMW and found this exact clause. If I do the BICT I can incorporate for around 50k in SDLT plus fees. If I don’t do it by 1 April it’s £200k and thus no realistic chance of EVER incorporating.

It also strikes me that mortgage conditions tell us not to rent to benefits, nor to alter or extend the property, but I’m sure many landlords have done that without a second thought!

No time left. What the hell do we do?

Options:

1. Incorporate using the BICT vehicle before 1 April, over the next twenty years nobody ever checks, or if they check they agree with your advice, job done £50k down to book a ringside seat at the collapse in prices for crap BTLs as all the BTL money exits the market
2. Incorporate using the BICT vehicle after 1 April... Sorry too expensive? OK forget that...
3. Don't incorporate and go bankrupt by 2021
4. Sell now, sell everything

You'll remember Mr Fraser as the author of one of the worst of all the many terrible PovertyLater open letters. Hence, here they are, in their full pomp, the savvy BTLers.

[MississippiJohnHurt]

one of the worst of all the many terrible PovertyLater open letters[/url]. Hence, here they are, in their full pomp, the savvy BTLers.

]

It was good but I cant help thinking that Gary Dully's suggestion would play better on the streets of Batshitville. We haven't had enough Dully round here lately actually:

"Dear valued tenant,

This letter is to update you on unfolding events within the rental industry that are about to burst onto your TV screens and be written about in your newspaper.

Due to the incredible stupidity of this current government and more especially the crass buffoon of a chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne,

Who, incidentally, now needs 4 budgets a year to keep the country from going bust, because he cant tax Google or Amazon properly, (or doesnt want too).

They have had to devise such a lunatic way of assessing all landlords taxable incomes, that over 4.6 million tenants in the UK are about to receive letters such as this one or simply can assume, by default, that they will be made homeless over the next 4 years as their Landlord is bankrupted by the State.

It is called Clause 24, it will affect you and many thousands of other tenants in the city.

We are currently mired in a legal battle to get it stopped along with hundreds of other UK Landlords across the UK.

It is being fought because the change is discrimination of a particular occupation (Landlords), and a particular group of people within it, (Tenants), who pay for everything we do through rents.

This battle is currently being waged against the government and they are fighting us with everything they have got, including smears and bare faced lies in a vain pretense of saying its for the good of first time house buyers and they are somehow removing a favorable tax treatment of our business.

If thats the case, they should apply Clause 24′ to all businesses and watch the country go bankrupt overnight especially George Osbornes family business as the World calls the UK a No-go area of stupid taxation rules.

Therefore I should warn you that if Clause 24 is not reversed by Judicial Review, this increase will probably double every year for the next 4 years.

You have never faced a rent increase, whilst being a tenant of ours, but this pathetic, stupid idiot of the exchequer has thrown the UK Rental Market into turmoil overnight and made our business model into a 3rd World economic Basket Case that will cause rent increases across the UK to run into £Billions for loyal tenants such as yourself.

Political cronies that will comment on this over the coming months will attempt to blame everything and everybody but themselves, but they are all aware of this disaster, including Conservative, Liberal, Scottish National and Labour MPs who have given the green light to your rent rises by not killing off this discrimination of a taxation change stone dead before it even got to the statute book.

It is now the law of the land and it breaks my heart to raise your rent, but the choice is stark, our accountants are advising us and all other Landlords to either increase now or lose the property that you rent, as we face potential massive increases of tax to,the Government.

If you intend to look to rent elsewhere, I understand why you would do so, I probably would do the same, but please bear in mind that the government have chosen not to affect the rich Corporate Landlords and they will be raising rents also to obtain extra profits for their shareholders knowing that all Private Landlords are going to be forced to raise their rents and they will simply attempt to do the same.

So if you want your next Landlord to have an 0845 contact number, have no say in your property decoration, and want to live in a student type block and share the washing machine , I wish you well.

However, unlike us, your new Landlords will probably be Foreign Owned and they wont be paying a single extra penny of tax to the HMRC.

So for those tenants that stay, thank you and for those that dont, I will provide you with a reference should you need it.

The rental market is about to implode as Landlords like ourselves are taxed in excess of 100% of our incomes by the Government and their idiotic advisors, who cant even get the big companies to pay tax and now have decided to tax our tenants instead through their rents.

Your rent increase is on the accompanying document, if you wish to complain to myself of your local MP, please use the internet links provided.

You are wonderful people and do not deserve to be treated in such a fashion, by a lying cheating politician called George Osborne, that simply doesnt give a fig about your or our financial situation and have created a ruinous tax change without seeing its consequences.

We shall continue to fight this deplorable tax law change through the Law courts and I will keep you updated of any developments, as they arise.

Kind Regards"

I liked it when it said 'vain pretence' and 'it breaks my heart to raise your rent' in the same letter.

Edited March 21, 2016 by MississippiJohnHurt