Tentative Early Thoughts - Has anyone gone the Ltd route to Buy To Let?

[EinsteinTax]

I have done a fair amount of investigation on this, both for clients and for my own BTL portfolio.

I switched all my personally owned BTL property to an SPV Ltd before the increased SDLT rates were introduced in April 2016.

There are a lot of factors to consider, but there is a much stronger case for the SPV Ltd company option for new purchases than for transfers from personally owned to Ltd. This is due to the SDLT and CGT costs when transferred from personally owned to Ltd. Also, the Ltd mortgage interest rates are typically higher than personal BTL rates and they also tend to be loaded for related transactions (transfer from personal to Ltd).

If you are into BTL for the long term and have more than one BTL property, it is definitely worth considering a Ltd. It's not always a clear cut decision though and, as Fred Bloggs says, it's very difficult to predict future changes in the rules for both individual and corporate BTL owners.

[Iliketax]

As far as I know the inter-company loan would not be subject to S455 taxation so long as you are a participator in both companies. And again from what I've read, interest doesn't have to be paid on the loan. These 2 factors differentiate an inter-company loan from a director's loan.

You might want to ask your accountant about the impact of the new close companies' gateway in s554AA (see draft Finance Bill 2017). This is still subject to change but may be problematic for new loans from 6 April 2017 and all loans made since 1999 from April 2019.

[vwdan]

So, has anyone actually got this kind of thing on the go yet?

I'm potentially in a position to really start the ball rolling on getting a BTL, but I'd really like to hear from the been and done it crowd.