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I planned to move out of the property I own in 2019, but didn't move out and therefore rent out my flat until Jan 2020. I'm doing my self assessment for tax year 19/20, but was wondering if I can still claim for ERC incurred for changing my mortgage to a let-to-buy type mortgage (not sure it was exactly this as they knew I wasn't buying a new property - living with parents), even though I changed my mortgage in Feb 19 (before the tax year I'm submitting). Also are any of the other legal fees involved such as notice to leaseholder etc tax deductable. Many thanks!

Hi I do all the admin for a single property my partner owns and lets privately and i'm just trying to make sure i'm looking at things correctly. It was his residential home previously. In preparation for letting it, many repairs were done in the months beforehand. New kitchen as the existing one was handmade. New boiler as the existing one was 27 years old. Refresh of decor and flooring etc. It was in a livable and lettable condition, but as he was going to be moving far away, he wanted to make the property as reliable as possible. The boiler and kitchen were large jobs as the location and pipework of the boiler did not meet modern regulations. The layout of the kitchen remained the same, but in order to access the gas pipes to replace them with the correct ones, the handmade units would have broken apart whether we had intended to replace the kitchen or not. He also had to replace the freestanding electric cooker twice as the original only had one of the two ovens working and then he accidentally smashed the ceramic top of the first replacement while doing other work, requiring another one. From reading other threads I concluded that these would be allowable under revenue costs rather than capital (please advise if this is not the case). Some of the large costs were incurred in the 18-19 tax year, but were undertaken specifically for the purpose of getting the property ready to let from April 2019, but, due to an unexpected delay in the purchase of the onward residential property, wasn't able to be remortgaged to an interest only BTL until July 2019 and let until August 2019. His personal self employment income was £31k for 18/19 filed by an accountant as he needed it to be certified for the mortgage applications. He did not have any personal income in the 19/20 tax year until employment in September 2019 and has received his p60 for 19/20 with an income of £12k and paye tax paid of £1200 as some weeks he got a bonus. He undertook associated training and qualifications over July and August 2019 amounting to £2500 in personal employment expenses. My question comes in whether ALL the repair / replacement costs as well as the normal recurring allowable expenses (management & referencing fees, mileage, RLA membership, 20% of mortgage interest ...etc.) incurred leading up to and during the tenancy up to April 2020 should be apportioned to the 19/20 accounts for the property, and if so, the result will be a very large loss (Circa £8000 loss), which makes no difference to his tax liability in 19/20 as he is already below the threshold. Or, can an accountant alter his 18/19 self assessment to include the large startup costs incurred in that tax year, where the allowance will actually have an effect on his tax liability? If not, would declaring such a small self assessment income for 19/20 (overall +£1500 for the year!) negatively affect his ability to remortgage both the BTL in July 2021 and his Residential mortgage in July 2024? His previous SA302s that the mortgages were calculated on were 29k, 30k and 31k from self employment before he relocated. There has been no late payments and no bad debt despite things being a bit tight as most of the expenses were paid from savings. He's currently employed rather than self employed, so would they just take 3 months wage slips and ensure the rent was 1.25x costs at the time of remortgaging rather than looking at the previous tax years? If the negative effect would be worse than the benefit of declaring the loss would it be better to try and switch as much of the expense to capital even though he wouldn't be planning on selling the property for at least 15 years, if ever. Just want to make sure whatever we do now won't cause more problems down the line. Alternatively, is there any way to spread these startup costs across future tax years instead where the allowance would have more of an impact on tax efficiency as working full time for the year 20/21 should have an income of around £23k as his hourly wage went up after 6 months and there will be a whole year of employment. Additionally, there would be a projected profit from the rental property of about £4000 after allowable expenses for the year, assuming no void period. I appreciate there are a few different queries here, but any insights are welcome

Hi all, This post is to see if anybody has had a similar problem to me this year, and if so to seek mutual solace that we are not alone!! I submitted my return in October, online. The amount was low enough to be paid through PAYE, which I opted for. At the start of 2018 I was getting text messages from HMRC reminding me to pay. I logged in and my account said "You have nothing to pay" which I took as confirmation it would be taken through PAYE. However by yesterday this was still niggling me so I logged in. My account was now saying I had to pay by close of play 31/1/18 (the 2016/17 payment deadline). Not only that but the amount had increase by almost £400. I rang the self assessment hotline but naturally being the deadline day I could not get through despite being on hold for 35 minutes. I have written them a letter today to try and find out what the situation is and to try and stave off any penalties for late payment. A quick google search brought up a couple of accountancy firm websites referring to a problem I could not understand around some 2016/17 payments on account being mis-recognised as payments for a previous year. Not sure if that is relevant to my situation as I haven't tried to make any payments. My wife's return went through with no problems, however we were always opting to pay hers immediately. Steve

Hi, I replaced the existing worn carpet in my new rental last year which cost me £3k, and along with other repairs to make the place rentable I have a total of £4k expenses to claim against my tax. However the HMRC online tax has highlighted " WARNING: This figure is high in relation to 'Total rents and other income from property' ". I've gone through the claimable items and the only possible questionable one is whether the carpet is a capital expense. To me this is a like-for-like replacement, therefore claimable, but am I wrong? Thanks Dave

Hi everyone, I'm planning on completing my self assessment tax form this weekend. I haven't yet completed on my first rental property but have incurred costs such as the sourcing fee and property education books in the 2014-15 tax year. Should I be including these costs in my self assessment somewhere? or do I just need to keep records for future capital gains deductions? Thanks, Richard

Desperately seeking a financial wizard/accountant/bookkeeper to help me prepare for my first re mortgage to release equity for a self build / BTL strategy I have a salary of £26k incl overtime, plus around £20k of self employed + rental income (commercial property sub lets, lodger and parking) I've been doing my own tax returns for years and as I'm so conditioned into maxing my expenses to pay as little tax as possible, I feel it would be wise to employ a suitable wizard with a sound understanding of the current requirements of lenders to give me the best outcome. I need to be sure what types of income, (specific to my circumstances) will be considered valid by potential lenders so I can submit 1 tax return at the end of jan, and the next at the start of April and satisfy the 2 years requirement for self employed My current mortgage is guarantored and expires in April 2016, I would like to get this going beforehand however and am not tied into a mortgage deal, on the SVR currently I'd like to keep my flat to let, and use the as much of the 400k ish equity to self build, and possibly to buy a cheap ish BTL also if possible Can anyone kindly make a recommendation? Many thanks! Mike