Melboy

Nor me. BUT you never know how the future will pan out do you.

I have no doubt that many landlords will be looking to sell and get out of private letting before these new laws are passed.

That is one of the best things to have come out in this election BUT don't forget this was the Westminster Parliament elections and not the Scottish elections where no doubt the SNP will probably gain more seats from their supporters.

About 25 years ago I was asked by a Canadian organisation to help out and seek out some technical information for them in the UK. My contact Man and heading this organisation turned out to have a British accent so naturally I asked him how he ended up In Canada. He said that in 1964 when Labour PM Harold Wilson was elected into Government he packed his bags and emigrated to Canada and never looked back. I wonder how many people are packing their bags right now ready to go to Spain, Portugal, France etc.. to escape what is coming. 😀

I have been bombarded with election leaflets over the past 2 weeks. 6 on Saturday! What's also worrying and I have never seen before in any election are the 4 large election boards in neighbours gardens displaying their voting intent. This constituency is, or at least was a dead cert Conservative safe seat and has been since Pitt the Younger was PM. I don't think that is going to be the case come 4th July. What concerns me is not a Labour Government as such but the people behind the posters like one, Angela Raynor who, in my opinion, has the brain of a whelk and this person is going to be the mouthpiece of the left wing Momentum group. God help us all especially landlords as she hates us.

I was dipping in and out of the London based Barnard Marcus live viewing property auctions yesterday. The first thing that became apparent to me was that the Southern area property on offer were just not really selling and way off the auction reserve prices whereas the Northern area were but that's not surprising as most of the Northern properties were selling at well below the 100 thousand pounds and the properties looked to be very good value as well. So I would imagine there is still a market for BtL in the North of the UK.

Never before in all my years of voting in any election, and it's been quite a few, have I felt that I just don't know who to vote for. It's a terrible choice on display. I can't abstain as I will have nobody to moan at when it all goes wrong. 😄

As good a place as any to mention this: I spoke to a landlord that I know this past weekend who is selling up and getting out of the business for all the reasons we are probably aware of. He has been renting out 2 properties over a 20 year period but has decided to call it a day due to the up and coming uncertainty of a future Labour government and for other reasons. Like the many he regrets not doing this 3 years ago when the annual Capital Gains tax allowance was £12,300 per person and not the £3,000 it is now. Will Labour do away with the CG tax allowance completely I wonder? He will invest the sale proceeds into the high interest rates on offer right now and before they go down, probably in August, which is what a lot of selling up landlords have done. It would be interesting to know if anybody is actually buying BtL property right now. With the high property prices in the Southern area of the UK is it worthwhile anymore?

All this talk by the Conservative and Labour leader about the many taxes they are NOT going to raise leaves either party leader with a limited choice of where the money is actually going to come from to pay for the agenda that both leaders say they will do. So that leaves only Council tax, Property banding reform (favoured by Labour) More inheritance tax, Landlords of course (another obvious choice by both Parties ) and probably a few more not so obvious taxes which will increase. Anybody reading this who is old enough to remember the Labour Government headed by one Harold Wilson back in the mid 1960's his Government and Chancellor caused the "Brain Drain" of talent out of the UK with their outrageous tax rises and the wealthy and the wealth creators fled the UK in their thousands. Happy Voting! 😄

You can guarantee that the Labour and Conservative will make sure that you will be paying more indirect tax rather than the 3 election losing direct taxes which are NI, VAT and personal taxation but the Conservatives have already hit personal taxation by not raising the inflation threshold of £12,300 before personal tax kicks in and that remains in force until 2027. I think they will also make sure that you when you depart this World they will skim even more money off your remaining wealth than they do already. I know of quite a few older people who are making sure that their hard earned life's wealth pile is diminished slowly but surely to avoid inheritance taxes etc. by helping their children and grandchildren and having major works carried out on their property like my next door neighbour...new roof, new double glazing, new driveway, new heating system just to get rid of surplus cash and he is not the only one around here either doing this.

I have held a property for over 30 years as well. 39 to be precise. I have all the documents regarding the purchase in a folder including the original EA's sale / details. Oh! the prices back then! 😃 It's something I have always done which is really out of character for me. My CGT payment to HMRC will be enormous if I was to sell. It's academic really because I won't be selling this property as I have no need to and in my demise from planet Earth it will pass to a family member, that's assuming the future Government of the day will allow these things to happen.

I agree.......The police will have handed this civil matter over to HMRC.

.........and it's goodbye to Michael Gove the housing minister. He won't be missed certainly by the vast majority of private landlords including me. Fortunately his proposals never reached the statute book and were kicked into the long grass of debate probably because he and his colleagues realised this new proposed tenancy law was going to badly affect them as many MP's are also private landlords. The one thing that always grips me is that the media never put across the one simple fact of life and that is when a person decides to rent a property then it is a contract between landlord and tenant and the landlord has every right to claim their property back under current statute law conditions. If a tenant doesn't like that then don't rent a property! Having said that I have a tenant who has been renting from me for 20 years and is very happy with the arrangement and my brother in law has been renting in the London area for 50 years from a private landlord so in the vast majority of cases the landlord/tenant contract arrangement works well. We wait now for the Labour Party to twist the knife into the back of the private landlord with their new proposed tenancy contract laws and the exodus of the private landlord will gather pace once again and I have no doubt about that.

Just a bit of an update on the rental property rental scene in my area of North Wilshire. I was chatting to my Son in the week and as a lot of regular members know he is a licensed independent gas engineer and has been for 30 years running his tiny heating business. He said that he has noticeably seen quite a drop in undertaking gas inspections / landlords certificates / Boiler replacements in the last 12 months. He does a lot of work for 2 major letting / selling agents in the area plus his own customers. The general consensus is that many landlords are calling it time (like RL) and getting out of the private landlord business. One person he does a lot of work for has 28 properties but is now in the process of selling off 2 or 3 this year and more to follow over the next few years. That will hit my Son's income! He changed all 28 boilers over a 2 year period plus a load more work. The other noticeable thing from the selling agents I speak to is that quite a number of Landlords are selling their properties with long term paying tenants in place with a caveat they must not be evicted on completion of that sale if they are paying their rent etc. to their new landlord. I guess this is trying to be fair to a long term tenant who gives no hassle to their landlord. Personally speaking I think it's a brave person who enters the BTL market right now as it's a whole new World now what with interest rates and large deposits and an uncertain future with the Labour Party about to gain power. God help us all!!

I came to the conclusion a few years back that this Conservative government was anti private landlord with all the legislation they were bringing in, some of which was OK and needed some reform, but in the main they wanted many restrictions on private landlords. The possible future Labour government is probably going to be a lot worse though. The only reason I stay in the business is that I have been a landlord for 35+ years and have excellent long term tenants who give me no hassle otherwise I would have sold up and completely retired a few years back.