Call for CGT relief if tenants are families or domestic abuse victims

Fergus Wilson, arguably Britain’s most controversial landlord and almost certainly the individual with the largest number of buy to lets in the UK, has told the government how it should re-organise the rental sector.

Wilson is retiring in the coming weeks as the sell-off continues of the remaining 400 of the 1,000 or so BTL units he owned with his wife in Kent.

Now in a statement seen by Letting Agent Today, Wilson gives his advice to the government. “The first thing it needs to do is to restore tax relief on buy to let mortgage payments to the headline rate. In simple English whatever rate the landlord pays, that is applied to the entirety of the mortgage interest” he says.

“The next thing it needs to do is to have a level playing field so that companies and non-company landlords pay the same [tax] rate of 10 per cent. Entrepreneurs’ relief is currently 10 per cent” he suggests.

Wilson’s wish-list also requires the scrapping of the three per cent stamp duty surcharge on the purchase of BTL units, and incentives for landlords taking families.

“Any landlord taking tenants with children should be given a one per cent discount per tenancy year on his capital gains for that specific house ... [Currently] if a landlord takes a domestic abuse victim he has to pay out the mortgage but receives no income from Housing Benefit for months - again there should be a one per cent discount on GCT as above” he says.