About time! Airbnb agrees to pay £1.8m more tax in the UK after HMRC investigation

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HMRC hit Airbnb UK with an extra £1.8 million tax bill last year to add to the £1m it had already paid.

The home-sharing platform settled up after a request from HMRC following two years of contact with the tax office, according to the firm’s accounts.

These showed that Airbnb paid £1.1 million in tax in the year to December 2019, compared to £146,000 in 2018, while profits also rose sharply over the year to £5.6 million from £455,000.

The company has faced pressure worldwide to ensure that its hosts pay the appropriate taxes, and has now promised to partner with HMRC and share data on hosts’ earnings for 2017/18 and 2018/19.

HMRC is expected to address any issues over their payments in 2021/2022.

Tax owed

“We have taken steps in HMRC to consider sectors, such as short-term property letting, where we may not be collecting the full amount of tax owed,” HMRC told Reuters.

“We appreciate this is a rapidly evolving sector and we are working in partnership with companies, such as Airbnb, to address the tax consequences of these changes with a commitment to creating a level playing field for all.”

Earlier this month Airbnb launched its new City Portal to respond to data-sharing requests from cities around the globe by giving them more efficient access to data about listings – including whether or not they’re complying with laws.

And it has finally filed its IPO paperwork with the securities and exchange commission in readiness for a much-anticipated initial public offering.

Airbnb had planned to prepare to go public in March but halted plans when coronavirus hit. The company was valued at $18 billion at its last funding round in April, down on the previous 2017 valuation of $31 billion.

Airbnb also goes to great lengths online to ensure landlords pay their tax.

Read more Airbnb stories.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – About time! Airbnb agrees to pay £1.8m more tax in the UK after HMRC investigation | LandlordZONE.

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BREAKING: Government launches MOT-style service for property EPCs

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The government has today announced a significant shake-up of the Environment Performance Certificate (EPC) system in England and Wales.

Housing minister Christopher Pincher has launch an online service to improve the energy efficiency of people’s homes as the government bids to achieve its ‘net zero emissions’ target by 2050.

This is in effect a ‘green MOT’ for homes and will make it much easier for sales and letting agents and homeowners to find out if a property has a valid certificate, and create one if it does not.

Like other government services including MOT certificates and Road Tax, the energy certificates will now exist as a web page making it easier for EPC assessors to share a certificate with estate agents simply by emailing a web page instead of a file.

“This makes it far easier for citizens and property professionals to store, view and share this vital information,” says Pincher (left).

Timothy Douglas, Policy and Campaigns Manager: “On the face of it these proposals simply do not take into account the state of the UK’s housing stock.

“We all want to see more energy efficient homes, but the new rules and requirements must be realistic and achievable.

“Landlords and their letting agents are already taking the brunt of tax changes and many are providing support to tenants with Covid related arrears.

“A simplified exemptions regime and additional financial support must be made available otherwise the measures in their current form, will not be achievable and that would mean further reductions in the supply of rented accommodation available.”

Visit the new government EPC site.

Read our guide to EPCs.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – BREAKING: Government launches MOT-style service for property EPCs | LandlordZONE.

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Advice on HMO letting Agreement?

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Hi All I would like some advice on what would be the most appropriate, rental agreement for residence living in a HMO property, where they have there own private room and have shared access to lounge kitchen and bathroom.

Would it be best to use an AST or a licence agreement or any alternative agreement?

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Mitigating IHT on property growth

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Just suppose you’re buying a rental property right now for say £200,000.

Is it reasonable to assume that it will probably double in value in your lifetime?

If so, and assuming your net assets are worth more than your IHT allowances provide for

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Legal test case: Jarvis v Evans & Evans – validity of section 8 notice

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This case relates to properties in Wales and whether a section 8 notice is valid, served when the landlord was not licensed under section 7 of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014.

The cased dates back to 2019 but has since received an appeal court decision, July 2020.

The question was: must a landlord be licensed to serve a notice under section 8 of the Housing Act 1988 (“the 1988 Act”)? If he must, is a notice served by an unlicensed landlord null and void?

In recent years, Welsh and English law have diverged in some important respects and in particular for private rented housing. The Housing (Wales) Act 2014 passed by the National Assembly for Wales (“the Assembly”) includes provision for the regulation of landlords and their agents which has no parallel in England.

Among other things, the Welsh regime requires landlords to be registered in respect of any dwelling let under a “domestic tenancy” and to be licensed to carry out either lettings activities or property management activities for dwellings the subject of “domestic tenancies”.

In Jarvis v Evans the periodic tenants (Mr & Mrs Evans) were in arrears with their rent which led to the landlord servicing notice under section 8 of the Housing Act 1988. The subsequent hearing came before District Judge Pratt in the County Court at Haverfordwest on 24 June 2019 at which the judge made out a possession order.

Appealing the District Judge’s decision, Mr and Mrs Evans asserted that Mr Jarvis “was not licensed or registered at the time that he served the section 8 notice he relied upon” and that it “must follow that service of the same was ineffective”.

The appeal was heard by Her Honour Judge Garland-Thomas, sitting in the County Court at Swansea, on 20 August 2019. Giving judgment the same day she allowed the Evans’ appeal, noting that while Mr Jarvis was a director of his company that was already licensed, Mr Jarvis himself was not registered or licensed when the section 8 notice was served. He had not been registered himself as landlord of the property in his own name until July 2019, after the notice had been served.

Judge Garland-Thomas therefore held that the section 8 notice was ineffective, stating:

“I am satisfied … that a Section 8 notice is a notice within Section 7 of the [2014] Act. The [2014] Act was brought into effect or more particularly, these sections of the Act were brought into effect to protect tenants from landlords who were unregistered and unlicensed and it seems to me that there is no reason why Section 8 should not come within that Act…”

The County Court judgement was overturned because the second judge determined that the section 8 notice was invalid. This she argued was because the landlord was not registered under the Rent Smart Wales registration scheme. Although the landlord had in fact completed the required training under the scheme, and had obtained a licence, unfortunately for him this was all in his company’s name. This clashed with the fact that the property and the tenancy were in the landlord’s own name.

This is a case which relates specifically to Wales and the licensing regime there, but it does have implications further afield, i.e. for England.

With the various forms of licensing applicable in England and the various sets of prescribed information which must be served on residential tenants, it leaves many loopholes under which a landlord or her agent can be challenged if anything has been missed when setting up or managing a tenancy.

Secondly, the point about ownership and the tenancy agreement being in alignment with the notice should not be missed.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Legal test case: Jarvis v Evans & Evans – validity of section 8 notice | LandlordZONE.

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EXCLUSIVE: We review new landlord ‘Parasite’ book before it’s published

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Being a landlord is both about heart-wrenching, bank account emptying lows and the joys of being your own boss, free from office huddles and long commutes, isn’t it?

But does this, along with the daily grind of property and tenant management really make for any more than an amusing blog or good pub anecdotes?

One landlord, who wants to remain anonymous under the alias The Secret Landlord, has decided to test the water on this front and has written a considerable tome called Parasite? The Secret Diary of a Landlord as an e-book to be published on Amazon next month.

She’s called ‘SL’ in the book and appears to have a long-suffering partner unimpressed by her 24/7 landlording hi jinks, and says she came to the industry via the ‘accidental’ route. And now she wants to tell her story.

A pre-publication review copy has made its way to the LandlordZONE offices.

To someone who has no experience of the private rental sector, the £4.99 book will be a shocking revelation as a cast of bailiffs, tenants, estate agents, council officers, squatters and police officers both light up and darken her doorways.

But to any landlord who has operated in the more budget end of the PRS, much of this book will be familiar.

The Secret Landlord endures selling a property at auction, dealing with dopey tenants (all of which are given colours rather than names, to avoid libel action), solving extreme and often disgusting property management issues, being ripped off by chancer tenants and fending off complaints about damp.

Financial nirvana?

All in all, she has realised too late that being a professional landlord isn’t the lifestyle and financial nirvana the ‘property educator’ courses often promise.

The book is in a ‘daily diary’ format covering approximately a year, although in reality it’s several decades of drama boiled down to 12 months.

But it’s really a tale of lost innocence. She frequently comments that renting out homes has decimated her trust in the human race, helped her develop rhinocerically thick skin and slowly whittled away at her ability to give anyone favours.

“Before being a landlord I was a nice person and I trusted people but instead I now realise you can’t show any weakness,” she says.
It’s a sentiment most landlords will recognise.

Pre-order it here.

Read more landlord books on Amazon

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – EXCLUSIVE: We review new landlord ‘Parasite’ book before it’s published | LandlordZONE.

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Claim up to £5,000 with the Green Homes Grant

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A few weeks back we announced news of the government’s Green Homes Grant and how our partners at Smartstone Energy Solutions are helping landlords through the process to ensure you receive your maximum entitlement.

We have received a huge response from landlords so far

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BREAKING: Green Homes Grant opens for applications from landlords

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Landlords can now take advantage of the new Green Home Energy Grant scheme to get discounted home improvements.

Under Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s scheme, which opens for online applications today, homeowners including landlords can apply for a voucher to help install eco-friendly energy measures and the Government will stump up at least two-thirds of the bill – up to £5,000.

Improvements could include insulating a house to reduce energy use or low-carbon heating to lower the amount of carbon dioxide produced.

The voucher will need to be redeemed and improvements completed by 31st March 2021.

The voucher covers costs for labour, materials and VAT, and work must be completed by a TrustMark-registered installer who is also registered for the scheme.

Once they’ve provided a quote and the work is approved, a voucher is issued.

The Green Homes Grant counts towards the total state aid allowed over a three-year period; landlords will need to check that they don’t exceed the £200,000 threshold.

E or under

Most private rented properties need a minimum Energy Performance Certificate rating of E under the minimum energy efficiency standard; when applying for a voucher for their rented property, landlords will need to either provide proof that they’ve met this standard or proof of an exemption.

Ben Dyer, CEO of mobile-based billing firm Powered Now, says it’s a great boost for small businesses. “According to the Treasury, this scheme is set to support up to 100,000 jobs while helping the nation cut carbon emissions, delivering a win-win for all,” says Dyer.

“At a time like this, tradespeople need as much support as possible and by kickstarting home improvements this is almost certainly set to help.”

Apply: www.gov.uk/apply-green-homes-grant

Read more about the Green Homes Grant.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – BREAKING: Green Homes Grant opens for applications from landlords | LandlordZONE.

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Council tax rates across the country and the least expensive is Westminster!

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New research from Coulters Property looks at Band D council tax prices around the UK to reveal the UK’s highest paying council tax areas. Click here

It shows just how much it varies across the country with some homeowners at the top end paying £1,300 more than those at the bottom.

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Annual House Price growth up to 5%

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The Nationwide House Price Index has now been released for September indicating annual price growth accelerating to 5.0% in September, the highest rate since 2016

Prices rose 0.9% month-on-month, after taking account of seasonal factors and most regions saw a pickup in house price growth rates in Quarter 3 this year.

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