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It's no secret that leveraged property investment has been very lucrative in recent decades, but people have been made bankrupt as well, especially in 2008. I'm trying to get to grips with how people with larger portfolios sleep at night with lots of mortgage debt to their name. Let's say I have one Buy-To-Let worth £200k with £150k debt against it and it's held in an SPV with a 20% personal guarantee (PG). The most I can lose personally is 20% of debt, so £30k. This isn't too scary, unless I've spent all my money it probably won't bankrupt me and it's not an insurmountable amount of money to rebuild. Anyone hoping to grow big though is going to one day end up with much more debt than this, perhaps they will end up with 20 of the same property, worth a total of £4M with £3M debt and the same 20% PG. Now they are personally liable for up to £600k! That's a much scarier amount. I can think of a few ways investors might justify these risks and I'd be interested to get your thoughts. A) prices will never fall more than 25% and so negative equity will never occur, and if the property needs remortaging at this price (which won't be possible without putting new money in because of the new value) then it can be easily sold to cover the debt. B ) before prices get anywhere near dropping by 25%, the government will step in to support the housing market C) The investor has sufficient other assets to cover any insolvency in their property portfolio I get the impression that a lot of people are either not thinking about this risk or thinking of A and B. In my eyes at the moment, only C is really that safe. If the properties are held personally or with a larger PG, then much more is at risk. As an investor grows their portfolio, they might be under the impression that they are unstoppable, but if they keep up a mortgage LTV of 75% across their portfolio, they are no more safe against bankruptcy than someone with a single property, and in fact have more to lose. Please let me know what you think, do you have a way to mitigate against these risks? Am I missing something? Thanks

Hi, I bought a BTL property last year via an SPV and paid £500 + VAT for independent legal advice for the personal guarantee. I'm now on BTL no.2 and would absolutely love to avoid being robbed at daylight this time round! Can anyone suggest and London based solicitors (or national ones offering the service via Skype) that can give advice at a reasonable price? Thanks

Hi all, I've had an offer accepted this afternoon but I think I might have a problem getting a mortgage. I had previously spoken to the local council and told them about the possible purchase and they said they would gladly take the property and guarantee me the rent every month directly into my account. Now the problem is the tenants could be a working family or on benefits and I cannot choose who I want in the property. My broker said I have been refused by one lender because it is a rent back guarantee and they will try more tomorrow. Is this going to be a problem going forward?