Btl Scum Regrouping And On The Offensive. -- Merged

[Bland Unsight]

Surely this is a very bad thing, using the cost of challenging an arbitrary decision as a way of a preventing people from obtaining justice should never be supported - even if it is for BTLrs, even if it is Fergus himself.

Just shooting the breeze here really, but I'm inclined to argue that your premise that an "arbitrary decision" is being challenged is where the logic that leads to your assessment that it is a "very bad thing" stalls.

The government has to make rules which provide the basis on which tax is collected.

An arm of the government (HMRC) has to implement those rules.

The implementation will occasionally require judgements to be made and those judgements (e.g. regarding the legitimacy of the PovertyLater beneficial trust wheeze, or whatever it's called) are intended to be reasonable and where necessary will be backed by legal advice assessing that they are reasonable.

Reasonable and arbitrary are not synonyms.

The principle that should your assessment of reasonable differs from the Revenue's then you pay up first and are refunded later does not strike me as a "very bad thing", it strikes me as a practical way of collecting tax.

(Also, in the case of Section 24 and wheezes to avoid Section 24 the practicality of this principle is clear. Anyone upset about the uncertainty surrounding the Revenue's take on their wheeze, and further aggrieved by the possibility of having to pay the tax up front whilst the legal status of the wheeze is settled, is really struggling with an entirely separate "very bad thing" which is that their BTL investment walks and talks like a tax dodge and the Treasury just closed the loophole by taxing the leverage that make the whole dodge work. There's no point going on about it because Busta, Bosher and Wing Commander Cooper are swimming in deep oceans of self-delusion but from a material perspective high-leverage unincorporated portfolio BTL is a way to avoid income tax and CGT whilst making enormous gains.)

Edited July 25, 2016 by Ghost Bird

[Confusion of VIs]

Agree. The govt's ability to legally dip into anyone's pocket and take what they fancy is wrong in principle. As an issue of principle, it is more important than the little people like Fungus. See also Proceeds of Crime Act - where you can have cash etc confiscated and then have prove your innocence to get it returned.

Sure, it's nice to imagine that it's a flawed law but delivering some kind of natural justice against the land hoarders but our real concern should be with the flawed law.

justthisbloke - you have captured the thoughts behind my post exactly.

[Venger]

Unless I've missed something, the frame of justthisbloke's position is very questionable when applied to BTLers tax positions.

'dip into anyone's pocket' - just asking for tax owed, especially under new rules, to be paid imo. What flawed law? Section24(?)

'The govt's ability to legally dip into anyone's pocket and take what they fancy is wrong in principle. - Sure, it's nice to imagine that it's a flawed law but delivering some kind of natural justice against the land hoarders but our real concern should be with the flawed law.

A couple with £10M of mortgage debt, on loads and loads of BTLs, paying just a few thousands in tax each year under the current rules?

Their own choice and market-view if they didn't expect rules could be adjusted, and that MEW they took out to keep buying more homes may be needed for CGT if needing to sell due to such a tax-change relief adjustment on BTL in their own names.

I don't want them to be able to rely on some archaic ruling from the past, to avoid paying what is due under new rules. Pay what you owe is what I go by.

“Every man is entitled if he can to order his affairs so that the tax attracted under the appropriate Act is less than it otherwise would be. If he succeeds in ordering them so as to secure this result, then, however unappreciative the Commissioners of Inland Revenue or his fellow taxpayers may be of his ingenuity, he cannot be compelled to pay an increased tax.” [Lord Tomlin in Duke of Westminster v CIR [1936] AC1]

I know HMRC get it wrong on occasion as well, causing real hardship. Sometimes compensation, other times not. How we set our our affairs from the beginning, and our choice, can prevent misunderstandings.

22 July 2016

HM Revenue & Customs paid out £1.9 million in compensation after sending a firm bankrupt with a tax demand that turned out to be wrong.

The embarrassing blunder has been disclosed in the fine print of the organisation's annual report and accounts.

----

Bristol couple wrongly made bankrupt by Inland Revenue for two years win legal battle

By Michael_Yong | Posted: June 08, 2016

A couple from Bristol who were wrongly made bankrupt by the taxman have finally won a two-year legal battle to clear their names - but will not get any compensation.

Paul Williams and his wife Rosemary were made bankrupt by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in July 2014 after a mix-up in court.

A protracted legal battle between the couple and Inland Revenue ensued, with Bristol pair struggling to get any lawyer to pick up their case because they were bankrupt.

They had to rely on a student to help them through the case and hearings.

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/bristol-couple-wrongly-bankrupt-inland-revenue/story-29371333-detail/story.html

2015

"As the net closes on tax evaders, HMRC's public shaming of evaders sends the message that the public has more of a moral duty to pay the right amount of tax," said Mr Hubbard.

HMRC's Ms Granger added: "The message is clear: if you try to cheat, we are going to catch you.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/11941248/HMRC-taskforces-raked-in-an-extra-109m-this-year-heres-how.html

[eek]

Unless I've missed something, the frame of justthisbloke's position is very questionable when applied to BTLers tax positions.

'dip into anyone's pocket' - just asking for tax owed, especially under new rules, to be paid imo. What flawed law? Section24(?)

----

There is a general dislike of a particular HMRC desire to be able to directly take money from any bank account their believe has tax owed against it - its particular attached to their Advanced Payment Notification (APN) changes where HMRC are showing even less ability than usual to work out who should be subject to an APN and who shouldn't be....

It's perfectly possible this has nowt to do with S24 or anything else... There are a lot of people who really don't like what HMRC is proposing...

[TheCountOfNowhere]

[Venger]

There is a general dislike of a particular HMRC desire to be able to directly take money from any bank account their believe has tax owed against it - its particular attached to their Advanced Payment Notification (APN) changes where HMRC are showing even less ability than usual to work out who should be subject to an APN and who shouldn't be....

It's perfectly possible this has nowt to do with S24 or anything else... There are a lot of people who really don't like what HMRC is proposing...

Well, I can take a few steps back with that explanation, eek. I have read concerns of some contractors about such matters, and am not unsympathetic to concerns. Certainly I wouldn't want anyone paying a lot more than they owed.

Obviously on this thread my mind is on BTLer tax positions. A change to tax relief seeing high-leveraged BTL positions change dramatically with S24.

Many BTLers caught in a pincer with that, and CGT that would become liable if they try to sell.

For those BTLers in the pincer, I argue they put themselves in it, as market participants. Tax positions change. Not considering this a risk while outbidding would-be OOs and buying multiple properties over the years, to rent out... they made their own market decisions, affecting many others along the way.

I have pointed out how there has been a run of posts from different BTLers on the BTL forums, with them irate about the changes, and so many of these types of posts appearing on their different threads... "I was never interested in politics before C.24." often continuing in this way... 'but now I'm going to do everything possible to try and thwart Osborne becoming PM in future - there's millions of landlords and we can stop him.'

I think where I've posted on it previously it was probably to outline the fundamental hubris: not only in the belief that they can significantly affect politics now, having no grounding in it, but in the misplaced notion that they could ignore it in the first place.

They've been messing around with the fundamental living conditions and quality of life of an entire generation, and doing so via interest-only lending that has recently contributed to the biggest financial crisis in living memory, and yet they've apparently assumed that they could be so relaxed about the political risk that they needn't even cultivate an interest?

Pure ego. They advertise their arrogance and conceit as if it is some kind of defence for their actions, rather than that which is rendering them foolhardy and obtuse.

[Confusion of VIs]

Unless I've missed something, the frame of justthisbloke's position is very questionable when applied to BTLers tax positions.

'dip into anyone's pocket' - just asking for tax owed, especially under new rules, to be paid imo. What flawed law? Section24(?)

A couple with £10M of mortgage debt, on loads and loads of BTLs, paying just a few thousands in tax each year under the current rules?

Their own choice and market-view if they didn't expect rules could be adjusted, and that MEW they took out to keep buying more homes may be needed for CGT if needing to sell due to such a tax-change relief adjustment on BTL in their own names.

I don't want them to be able to rely on some archaic ruling from the past, to avoid paying what is due under new rules. Pay what you owe is what I go by.

I know HMRC get it wrong on occasion as well, causing real hardship. Sometimes compensation, other times not. How we set our our affairs from the beginning, and our choice, can prevent misunderstandings.

----

Venger, my post was in opposition to the HMRC's growing tendency to regard taxpayers as guilty unless they can prove themselves innocent; while knowing full well that most people will not have the resources to do this. It was not in any way intended to support BTLrs in avoiding tax.

Rather than the current tinkering with C24 and Stamp Duty, preference would be to fully treat BTL as a business - requiring BTLrs to take out loans at commercial rates and pay business rates on their properties.

My prefeered way of addressing

[eek]

Well, I can take a few steps back with that explanation, eek. I have read concerns of some contractors about such matters, and am not unsympathetic to concerns. Certainly I wouldn't want anyone paying a lot more than they owed.

Obviously on this thread my mind is on BTLer tax positions. A change to tax relief seeing high-leveraged BTL positions change dramatically with S24.

Many BTLers caught in a pincer with that, and CGT that would become liable if they try to sell.

For those BTLers in the pincer, I argue they put themselves in it, as market participants. Tax positions change. Not considering this a risk while outbidding would-be OOs and buying multiple properties over the years, to rent out... they made their own market decisions, affecting many others along the way.

I have absolutely zero sympathy with any BTLer who cannot pay the capital gains taxed owed on a property they sell. The fact they have MEWed that property is their problem and nothing to do with anyone else... They should have thought about the consequence of their decisions when they made them.

The thing is that the CGT tax position has never changed - the rules were always the same tax had to be paid whenever the property was sold. Their decision to spend that profit in the past merely created an issue that the BTLer needs to solve now - say by selling or remortgaging their main home (don't worry HMRC will do it for you if you don't pay them)..

I just don't think HMRC should be able to directly access bank accounts. Their more old fashioned approach of mentally torturing people their believe owe them money due to avoiding tax is something I think the average BTLer deserves...

Edited July 25, 2016 by eek

[Venger]

Venger, my post was in opposition to the HMRC's growing tendency to regard taxpayers as guilty unless they can prove themselves innocent; while knowing full well that most people will not have the resources to do this. It was not in any way intended to support BTLrs in avoiding tax.

Rather than the current tinkering with C24 and Stamp Duty, preference would be to fully treat BTL as a business - requiring BTLrs to take out loans at commercial rates and pay business rates on their properties.

My prefeered way of addressing

Thank you CoVIs - understood. Stepping further back now.

However the position with the BTLers, many of who have substantial BTL mortgage debt in their own names, is the position - and if we could magic them to being treated as being treated as incorporated businesses, few would need to sell in the near future.

Got it eek - and agreed. With BTLers/Fergus being mentioned, I concluded it was all about S24/tax - and others going on about tax-barristers vs GAAR.

I'm not in favour of direct access to take from bank accounts either. However I can understand the motives for doing so in some circumstances. It seems there may be a few reasonable safeguards in the process, IF mse article is correct?

Following a consultation on the measure, HMRC says it will guarantee to carry out a face-to-face visit to every debtor before it can take money from their account.

It can also only take debts from those who owe at least £1,000, and only if taking the money means people will still have at least £5,000 left across their accounts.

If it does decide to take the cash, banks will actually freeze the money for 30 days before it goes to HMRC. So you then have 30 days to object to HMRC about the money being taken. This is an increase from the 14 days originally planned.

If HMRC disagrees and takes the cash anyway, you also then have a right to appeal its decision at the County Court – a measure, which was also introduced following the consultation.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/protect/2015/07/summer-budget-2015-hmrc-given-power-to-raid-accounts-for-debts

[Pop321]

Phil, you're the most honest BLTer/HPCer around, for me.

As I remember it you were Phil Landlord over there, before you came more and more to understand the HPC side of it.

You're now more HPC than many HPCers ! (imo)

Just reminding myself to how you gradually came around..... so many BTLers with £millions in BTL personal debt.....

I am lucky enough to have some genuine friends and mentors who have taught be the value of common sense and empathy for others.

I also knew that hitting 3 bells in a row on the fruit machine every year may seem clever....but to proceed with caution.

It may only be I am your enemy's enemy...but that does mean I am on the same page as HPC. The hardship for generation rent is just not fair and not appreciated by the 118'ers. So once a crash occurs and BTL is dead then we can get back to proper LL bashing and I can get back in the other side of the fence and moan about how very difficult collecting rent is.?

[Growlers2]

Phil, you're the most honest BLTer/HPCer around, for me.

As I remember it you were Phil Landlord over there, before you came more and more to understand the HPC side of it.

I wish we had more of the opinionated BTLers who I disagree on this forum TBH.

Why are there forums (118 and HPC and PT) that reference each other repeatedly but no direct dialogue? It's stupid. I quite as admire Pipplman for what he offered. I'd love to intellectually tease out differences with more BTLers.

Mark Shine seems to be convinced that everyone on this forum is utterly wrong. He references HPC in literally every post (Are you ok Mark!?). I'm not sure he's fully set out his views - never challenged on them on the other forum - but I'd like to understand and debate them.

Why the lack of debate? This will not come from 118 and PT because they are commercial. More BTLers on HPC please!

[Pop321]

I wish we had more of the opinionated BTLers who I disagree on this forum TBH.

Why are there forums (118 and HPC and PT) that reference each other repeatedly but no direct dialogue? It's stupid. I quite as admire Pipplman for what he offered. I'd love to intellectually tease out differences with more BTLers.

Mark Shine seems to be convinced that everyone on this forum is utterly wrong. He references HPC in literally every post (Are you ok Mark!?). I'm not sure he's fully set out his views - never challenged on them on the other forum - but I'd like to understand and debate them.

Why the lack of debate? This will not come from 118 and PT because they are commercial. More BTLers on HPC please!

Yep, agree it's all very one dimensional. A repetition of the same argument over and over.

One example is the reference to all the homeless due to S24. I agree if IO were abolished, no relief at any rate on mortgage interest and stamp duty increased to 25% the market would fall and BTL'ers would have to sell up. There would be disruption for tenants......but still no net increases in homelessness. Simple maths.

S24 retrospectively introduced when some have locked into gains may seem unfair to those affected. But relying on leveraging for an infinite period (ie the term of an interest only loan) was riddled with the blindingly obvious risk of future change. Not least a rate increase but also tax, legislation, tenancy Acts, Right to Buy etc etc.

Hold my hands up...I did it. Bought things no one else would and renovated to sell but let to spread the capital gains. But never perceived myself as accidentally being a LL. My choice, my risk and because of that I tried to be in and out when it came to debt.

Said before I am like Darth Vader at the end of Star Wars.....all is forgiven, but I actually can see the impact I had along the way. So I don't forget that and my small impact on house prices and demand is a factor I know I am accountable for.

No one likes to be told they were wrong and 118 either believes they were right, know they were wrong but defensively hide that fact or just don't care about anyone other than themselves.

[Growlers2]

We are where we are. What matters is the future. I very much respect your posts and there are things I've done in the past (non property related) that I'm not proud of. If I could go back in time I'd buy bitcoin and I'm not sure that's 'moral'.

What I'm interested in is debate. I don't have strongly held views thankfully and love new ideas to pickle the brain!

It's so ******ing boring reading arguments advanced and presented in bad faith and at arms length.

[Venger]

I wish we had more of the opinionated BTLers who I disagree on this forum TBH.

Why are there forums (118 and HPC and PT) that reference each other repeatedly but no direct dialogue? It's stupid. I quite as admire Pipplman for what he offered. I'd love to intellectually tease out differences with more BTLers.

Mark Shine seems to be convinced that everyone on this forum is utterly wrong. He references HPC in literally every post (Are you ok Mark!?). I'm not sure he's fully set out his views - never challenged on them on the other forum - but I'd like to understand and debate them.

Why the lack of debate? This will not come from 118 and PT because they are commercial. More BTLers on HPC please!

Pipllman - well he's not here any more.

BTLers can join, but this is not the BTLer love-in thread - look at the title of the thread. There is pushback on HPC to many a view that BTLers, and 118 minded BTLers especially (some with £millions in personal BTL mortgage debt) tend to embrace.

As there is no gate-keeping on signing up and posting, literally anyone can join in on a thread, with attendant hilarity from time to time, of which my most recent favourite was the appearance of Ruggerlad, who, lifting from my own posting, arrived on a thread called “BTL Scum regrouping and on the offensive” like a meteor racing into the atmosphere from the vacuum of space, rapidly heating up to incandescence before being strangely and suddenly gone, leaving nothing but a trace in memory.

[.....]Some pages back I introduced one of the current threads, “Btl Scum Regrouping And On The Offensive”§. At time of writing, 13 August 2015, the thread is forty-six pages long. The thread was begun by Overlander (joined on the 19th October 2006, 84 posts at time of writing) on 16 July 2015.

..There is buried somewhere in the thread itself a line of discussion between posters about the appropriateness of calling the posters of another forum scum. My reading of that discussion is that after a little reflection we agreed that scum was well earned and appropriate. I personally have more latterly favoured ignorant moronic sociopathic amoral scum so it cannot be said that I come to the matter wholly dispassionately and with entirely clean hands, thus as ever, do your own research – your guru is a quack.

- A Goodbye To All That Buy To Let.

Pipllman wanted to buy more houses to rent out into a HPC. Fine. I would have liked to have read his reaction to SDLT surcharge, but he's no longer around. A hard HPC on all his houses is my view, and hopefully he can regret not selling up into a peaky market, and missing out on opportunity.

Pipllman was one of the more intelligent BTLers in my experience, who understood accounts, but was always going to find some of his positions tipped into, and I will do that for many BTLers I read on 118 type forums, were they to tip up and post some of the stuff they post there (on Twitter/Facebook etc) on here. I don't want to be drowned in their miserable greedy thicko VI that I read everywhere else, but they're still free to signup - simply have to expect robust pushback to their people-farming quest and any/all their £millions in debt special causes about Section 24 for example. Many a BTLer wants us to get behind them, and lobby S24 is unfair. Not happening from me.

Many BTLers see tenants in pure money terms, believe have played no part in outbidding owners-occupiers, that we should be grateful to them for providing homes, want us to be renters forever, and want ever more HPI. I won't embrace that!

HPC is the one real place an alternative discussion to widespread housing financialisation takes place - although there's also enough BTL/HPI sympathising too. One theme is that renters-should-rent for xx-more years to prevent the chosen ones having to endure price falls. If that isn't hard VI I don't know what is. Inheritors on London houses think it's the way forward though. So we have debate. Although you're framing it as if we don't, which for me is a knock against forum.

I personally loved Pipllman's framed-sweety-bag hero worshipping of his pal with 320 inherited properties. I will never stop laughing at that. (And more there, especially about one day doing the succession planning, seven years before he dies. My Will is all drawn up... knowing that you don't know when you may die.)

Absolutely true

I know a big landlord (320 properties) that he acquired by inheritance. He is a good landlord (houses kept to top standard, rents never at the top of the local market, fussy about who he lets to) and, as a result, has very few voids, waiting lists of would be tenants and long term tenants.

The biggest issue he has to deal with is inheritance tax planning. He hopes to be able to pass on most of the properties well before he enters the last 7 years of his life and I know he funds a life insurance policy that will pay out into a trust with the specific purpose of making a fairly big dent in the bill.

Anyway, I digress.

He hasn't bought any property since 2008 (he bought 1) and, before that, 2003. He is willing to buy and has the cash ready to complete very quickly. I know he has made at least 3 offers on properties this year, with no takers.

He showed me a framed old paper sweet bag (the sort you used to get when you bought a 10p mix) that he said his dad had written for him as the rules of acquiring and disposing of houses for the portfolio

1. Buy nice family houses only

2. Only buy at more than 9% yield

3. Pay cash, never borrow

4. Never sell

His BTL pal he looked up to. 320 family homes (inherited), and wants even more 'family homes' with this worldview of happy tenants who pass through his fussy procedures to become his tenants. Sweetie bag HPI property rules. HPC.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Venger

[Venger]

I wish we had more of the opinionated BTLers who I disagree on this forum TBH.

Why are there forums (118 and HPC and PT) that reference each other repeatedly but no direct dialogue? It's stupid. I quite as admire Pipplman for what he offered. I'd love to intellectually tease out differences with more BTLers.

Mark Shine seems to be convinced that everyone on this forum is utterly wrong. He references HPC in literally every post (Are you ok Mark!?). I'm not sure he's fully set out his views - never challenged on them on the other forum - but I'd like to understand and debate them.

Why the lack of debate? This will not come from 118 and PT because they are commercial. More BTLers on HPC please!

Also Growlers2 - try going to the BTLer forums and posting your views from renter-saver side, to offer balance.

Time over I've seen BTLer forum mods close down those offering balancer, close them down, remove posts, and suspend their accounts. And prior to that BTLers knocking them as trolls and disruptive agents/troublemakers.

HPC, and this thread especially, is not Hug-A-BTLer. Some of the BTLers have been shocked by S24, and their worldviews have been shaken.

Let them tip up though - it's fun, although I disagree with you that BTLers have anything to offer discussion here (on the whole) - when so many deep into debt and facing S24, and lashing out with chronic entitlement positions - that can read each day on all the other forums.

When the BTLers bring it here, you have to expect renter-saver pushback to their BTL glorying positions. (below) My family and other families don't want to be their multi-property pension plan, but to have opportunity for 1 home at a more affordable price, for homeownership.

As a landlord, with 7 properties that I have bought over 15 years instead of putting money into a bankrupt pension plan, I feel I only have three options:

1: Sell up. This will put seven families on the street or facing higher rental costs as demand falls. It will also turn my pension into a single pot of cash in the bank - and I don't trust bankers - and that's useless as a pension to live on, I need income

2: Raise rents. I need a pension. 7 properties currently equates to £1500 a month earnings after all costs. If I want to maintain that, then I'm going to need to add around £100 to each property per month. Given increased demand as other landlords exit, that could work.

3: Pay off the mortgage debt so the tax makes no difference. Yes, the very wealthy will not have any problem as they already own the properties. I don't, I have mortgages and the cost of repaying them is way too high, it's inconceivable I could pay them off. Unless house price rises keep growing until 2020 and then I could sell two or three to buy the rest.

The social outcome of this tax policy is simple: a contracted rental sector, tenants being squeezed for more rent and landlords paying it to the state in tax. Goodness help you if you are out of work, you'll be on the streets.

The thing is I agree that removing 40% tax relief is OK. I don't agree with mortgage costs being treated as income though. How many of you would like to be taxed on your residential mortgage? And if you want us taxed on mortgages as a level playing field, then level it out properly - no CGT on buy to let sales, same as residential.

The Government wants their cake and to eat it and the poor will pay for it. And all the landlord haters who are so happy now, will not be smiling when the homeless come knocking on their door and start sleeping outside their offices.

Then it was very silly indeed to enter into high risk financial arrangements with bankers by taking what would have been your savings and leveraging them against investment properties via buy-to-let financing from bankers

............The only tax arrangements that are relevant are those that apply to financing costs and first time buyers are still at a disadvantage as they still have to pay theirs entirely out of taxed income and with no tax reliefs, whereas leveraged buy-to-let investors are still going to be able to claim a 20% tax relief on finance costs.

There is a strong argument to be made that this remaining tax break should be phased out as well.

Sorry to disappoint but far from some irrational and emotive personal dislike this is simply an overriding conflict of interest: we (people in general) want to own the homes that we live in and you (landlords in general) want to own the homes that we live in.

Both groups can't reach a mutually satisfactory arrangement because the two positions are mutually exclusive: the more landlords get what they want (our homes) the more people in general are denied what they want (their own homes).

Unless you're all planning on irrationally demolishing your investment properties there is no reason whatsoever to think that the government being slightly less encouraging towards leveraged property investment (remembering when all is said and done there is still a 20% tax break on offer for such) will lead to any increase in homelessness.

Claiming that it will is both illogical and an implicit admission that your own fate - as a leveraged investor who has been, up until this point, profiting off the back of high risk deals that you chose to make with bankers of your own free will - is unlikely to bother anyone at all.

[..]At worst, the BTLers perhaps considered that the changes were being begun in an atmosphere of mutual incomprehension. They could not have envisaged that while they were understood almost too perfectly by their enemies, they had comprehensively misapprehended the forces of belief, need and morale operating within the hpcers/renter-savers.

Edited July 26, 2016 by Venger

[spyguy]

Again. Using the word 'bought' by 'Thsurer, on 22 Oct 2015 - 09:29 AM, said'

'I need a pension. 7 properties currently equates to £1500 a month earnings after all costs'

So a cash yield of £220/month from each BTL. That'll go with current tax changes. never mind Basel III and removal of basic rate relief..

Talk about high risk, low return!

Bit like my saying I need a pension, bring back slavery.

[eek]

Again. Using the word 'bought' by 'Thsurer, on 22 Oct 2015 - 09:29 AM, said'

'I need a pension. 7 properties currently equates to £1500 a month earnings after all costs'

So a cash yield of £220/month from each BTL. That'll go with current tax changes. never mind Basel III and removal of basic rate relief..

Talk about high risk, low return!

Bit like my saying I need a pension, bring back slavery.

You may laugh at pipllman with his paper bag but the rules on it are right - minimum 9% return and pay cash or repay the loan asap....

Anyone who believes in perpetually higher house prices is going to get exactly what they deserve...

And I really don't get the point of 7 houses generating £220 each a month. Far better 2/3 houses each owned outright generating £5-600 each

[Neverwhere]

Again. Using the word 'bought' by 'Thsurer, on 22 Oct 2015 - 09:29 AM, said'

'I need a pension. 7 properties currently equates to £1500 a month earnings after all costs'

So a cash yield of £220/month from each BTL. That'll go with current tax changes. never mind Basel III and removal of basic rate relief..

Talk about high risk, low return!

Bit like my saying I need a pension, bring back slavery.

The whole I need a pension thing is a really disingenous argument, IMO.

The state pension is perfectly livable if housing costs are otherwise taken care of, and what's more it is more generous currently than it will be for younger generations because of the (it seems continually) increasing retirement age limiting the amount of years that it can be claimed.

BTLers don't need another source of income on top of that at any cost, they want another source of income to support the lifestyle that they feel personally entitled to and they are prepared to severely negatively impact on and reduce the quality of life of younger generations in order to attain that want.

The situation is in fact the exact opposite of how they would seek to portray it. Secure shelter, without an ever present threat of no fault evictions, or the prospect of losing said shelter upon retirement (because renters never have the chance to pay off their housing costs prior to retirement, unlike owner occupiers), is a basic human need the absence of which causes serious detriment.

Every increase in the fulfillment of BTLer wants is bought at the expense of the young having access to basic human needs

[Pop321]

You may laugh at pipllman with his paper bag but the rules on it are right - minimum 9% return and pay cash or repay the loan asap....

Anyone who believes in perpetually higher house prices is going to get exactly what they deserve...

And I really don't get the point of 7 houses generating £220 each a month. Far better 2/3 houses each owned outright generating £5-600 each

Agree.

The basics of leveraging. Really sweet plan but businesses leverage to do more work eg I earn £100 a day...but employ 10 men and they earn me £100 a day and I pay them £60. Now I earn £400 a day.

Or I borrow to buy a machine which can deliver more units. Or I borrow to buy business premises so I can make more widgets.

However, not one of these relies on increases in prices....just the ability to do more and generate more income than the debt costs. Then I repay the debt.

So the only advantage of holding 7 properties with debt..to generate as much income as I would with 2 without debt is a belief prices (and/or rents) will rise.

Therein lies the issue....an infinite debt term, a philosophy of 'never sell', an expectation costs will not rise (.....ever) and a lack of appreciation of business. The model didn't work...it did not produce....but with the right timing and low interest rates some have seen gains. Whether they recognise their good fortune and get out is another matter.

[Venger]

You may laugh at pipllman with his paper bag but the rules on it are right - minimum 9% return and pay cash or repay the loan asap....

Anyone who believes in perpetually higher house prices is going to get exactly what they deserve...

And I really don't get the point of 7 houses generating £220 each a month. Far better 2/3 houses each owned outright generating £5-600 each

It's 'right' when you're minded to have the dream of owning someone else's home.

Or in that example, 320 family homes inherited (framed olde 10p sweety bag property rules) and wanting to buy even more family homes - and those priced out having to pass through Mr.Ego's LL's rules to be a tenant in one of his family homes, to kick up the rent.

Last part (7) is position for more 'mad-gainz' under foreverHPI. BTLer doesn't care 7 other families also want a home (homeownership) and also need to make their own way for a pension. No... he can have homeownership, take 7 houses out of the housing pool that could be houses for 7 other families, and try make them all his pension.

I don't need any of Growlers BTLers (in the name of debate and to get inside the BTLers all important heads) to tell me how to be a good boy and have my family rent from them forever, in the name of their overleveraged me-me-me position, with their whine about S21 apparently "actually hurts me as a tenant" - when seen them buying up terraces at £250K, and semis at £350K+.

The game was over; couldn't anybody see that? He looked despairingly around the faces of the officials, the spectators, the observers and Adjudicators. What was wrong with them all? He looked back at the board, hoping desperately that he might have missed something. The Emperor(s) had fallen for it, taken the bait, entered the run and followed it to be torn apart near the high stand, storms of splinters before the fire.

[Tweaked from The Player of Games.]

-Iain M Banks

[Venger]

Again. Using the word 'bought' by 'Thsurer, on 22 Oct 2015 - 09:29 AM, said'

'I need a pension. 7 properties currently equates to £1500 a month earnings after all costs'

So a cash yield of £220/month from each BTL. That'll go with current tax changes. never mind Basel III and removal of basic rate relief..

Talk about high risk, low return!

Bit like my saying I need a pension, bring back slavery.

These people are insane.

The social consequences of allowing this situation to come into being have been decidedly grim for renters, who have been effectively enslaved.

The social consequences of blowing these buffoons up (i.e renters being pushed from pillar to post by landlords issuing Section 21 notices) will be indistinguishable from how things are today.

The only other change will be a collapse in property prices back to a level consistent with earnings, allowing young people to once again obtain the security of tenure that comes with ownership and the ability to start making provision for the shelter they'll still need once their ability to work and earn abates, by buying a house.

Still at least Arc Malexander can chill out regarding the possibility of Mark Alexander suing over the lyrics to the second act closer.

Imperial Judge Bremoiya stood, just before the break, at the end of the afternoon session, and he looked at the alien. Bermoiya surveyed his own position. Everything was in a mess; there was nothing he could do now. Beyond redemption. It was like some badly prepared, fundamentally flawed case, or some piece of equipment, three-quarters destroyed; there was no saving it; better to throw it out and start again. But there was no starting again.

The alien rubbed his furry face, pursed his strange lips as he looked down at some point on the board. How could he look so unconcerned?

He gazed into the alien eyes. And saw nothing. No pity, no compassion, no spirit of kindness or sorrow. ....Then he knew. And suddenly, for the first time in his life, he understood what it was for the condemned to look into his eyes. He fell. To his knees at first, thudding down on to the board, cracking raised areas, then forward, on to his face, eyes level with the board, seeing it from the ground at last. He closed his eyes.

-Player of Games

Edited July 26, 2016 by Venger

[Venger]

Those who were HPI fanatics would never be friends, we're fundamentally different beasts. I will have no sympathies if they can't afford a holiday, new car, or lose their shirt. I'll get very angry if, after bailing them out for the last 10 years, I finally lose my shirt to keep them afloat.

And so it is with the BTLers, imo. Especially all the BTLers lashing out against S24 at the moment, convinced they are businesses in their own names and not investors. There will be plenty more investors and HPI++ VIs to learn about it (S24 and that HPI isn't all locked in) in time ahead.

Sorry to disappoint but far from some irrational and emotive personal dislike this is simply an overriding conflict of interest: we (people in general) want to own the homes that we live in and you (landlords in general) want to own the homes that we live in.

Both groups can't reach a mutually satisfactory arrangement because the two positions are mutually exclusive: the more landlords get what they want (our homes) the more people in general are denied what they want (their own homes).

Unless you're all planning on irrationally demolishing your investment properties there is no reason whatsoever to think that the government being slightly less encouraging towards leveraged property investment (remembering when all is said and done there is still a 20% tax break on offer for such) will lead to any increase in homelessness.

Claiming that it will is both illogical and an implicit admission that your own fate - as a leveraged investor who has been, up until this point, profiting off the back of high risk deals that you chose to make with bankers of your own free will - is unlikely to bother anyone at all.

'Excuses, eh? Well, if this ain't cynicism, what is?' Erens snorted.

"Yes, excuses he said, with what Erens thought might just have been a trace of bitterness. 'I strongly suspect the things people believe in are usually just what they instinctively feel is right; the excuses, the justifications, the things you're supposed to argue about, come later. They're the least important part of the belief. That's why you can destroy them, win an argument, prove the other person wrong, and still they believe what they did in the first place.' He looked at Erens. 'You've attacked the wrong thing.'

'So what do you suggest one does, Professor, if one is not to indulge in this futile... arguing stuff?'

'Agree to disagree,' he said. 'Or fight.'

'Fight?'

He shrugged. 'What else is left?'

'Negotiate?'

'Negotiation is a way to come to a conclusion; it's the type of conclusion that I'm talking about.'

'Which basically is disagree or fight?'

'If it comes to it.'

-Use of Weapons

Game of Homes

(Ok there is some middle ground... but not for the highly leveraged multi-property BTLer who've mewed and mewed and bought and bought, vs renter-savers.)

[.....]I feel very strongly that we need to argue forcefully and without kid gloves against idiocy and ignorance. [...] People tip up here and spout ignorant prejudice, and when you ask them to explain it, not defend it, explain it, then it is soon open season from them for ad hominem attacks and plain as the nose on your face bile.

As I've stated plainly before, for me, this is the place where destructive idiocy "you can't go wrong with bricks and mortar", "it's always the right time to buy" is called out as nonsense. I am just past forty, the generation coming up behind me are getting crucified by this nonsense and out in the world nobody is calling it nonsense. On these boards, I get to call it nonsense and fight like an animal, armed with evidence and reason, to demonstrate it is nonsense.

[.....] What about shared perspectives? Common values? Common purpose? Am I to maintain an existence in splendid isolation, the poster as atom, when working the hard yards in the trenches speaks to a different perspective. Is it a conversation or is it a box collecting submissions?

[.....]. Do we propose a social space where all voices are honoured equally, in defiance of their mastery of reason and evidence?

[.....]In my opinion, these boards are a battleground, and there will be fighting. You can elect to remain aloof. [...] But for those of us deprived of homes by the voice of reason tw@ts expecting us to rent from them forever, this is the f**king front line, and I fight, and I give it my best shot.

[Venger]

Latest letter from BTLer side. A hpcer tipped me off to it, finding one of the comments left on the thread amusing. (I've not been following BTL forums for a few days.)

FAO Chancellor Of The Exchequer – Mr Philip Hammond MP

Dear Mr Hammond

[...]We can only assume that Mr Osborne made a mistake by lowering the tax rate on capital gains for all but residential property. Please rectify this mistake and “level the playing field” by removing capital gains tax for all residential property completely. In other words, make sales of residential rental property CGT free too. This would put landlords in the same position as owner occupiers and would doubtless free up property stock, again “levelling the playing field”. Many highly leveraged landlords feel unable to exit the market and make properties available to owner occupiers due to being trapped by CGT liabilities exceeding equity in their properties.

.....

.....PS – having been private housing providers for a period spanning four decades (commencing 1989) we have decided to begin selling our properties to owner occupiers. Not one of our tenants is in a position to buy, hence we are selling as they are naturally vacated. To escape CGT on gains made prior to April 2015, and partly for lifestyle purposes, we have emigrated to Malta. A welcome side effect of this, as well as the weather and wonderful Mediterranean lifestyle, has been the reduced tax we pay on dividend income from our other business interests. This just doesn’t seem right though!

Edit (forgot to include link) = https://www.property118.com/open-letter-philip-hammond-mp-chancellor-exchequer/89272/

Doesn't seem right to me either - although uncertain as to official position (even though I read up a lot on it at one point).

As in whether going to Malta is really a way to avoid CGT prior to 2015 (and perhaps stretching back to 1989). Domicile/tax/CGT liabilities.

Edited July 30, 2016 by Venger

[eek]

Retrospective s24? Trust me it's not retrospective but thanks for giving HMRC ideas

And then there is a seperate comment about business and capital gains tax. Hint regardless of whether it's an investment or a business tax is due on profits made

Edited July 30, 2016 by eek

[Funn3r]

He demands that the playing field be levelled so that LLs are in the same position as OOs. Hypocritical or what.