u/Landlordlabuk

HMRC said more than 864,000 sole traders and landlords were required to enter Making Tax Digital this year. Yet an announcement slipped out last week admits that only around 436,000 have filed their quarterly update.

If your gross income (the rent before any deductions) is over £50k a year then your first submission was due on 7th August. If you missed it then don't panic. But if you don't know what is required then get help. www.landlordaccounts.co.uk are helping new clients with free submissions this year with their self-assessment. There are also options to self file but we know that not all landlords have the time or knowledge to do this every 3 months. So outsourcing it makes sense for professionals in the same way we help landlords who outsource their compliance management.

That is according to the latest research from Pegasus Insight that found 63% of landlords described tenant demand in the areas where they let property as either ‘very strong’ or ‘quite strong’ in Q2 2026, up from 58% in Q1. That was the first increase since the unusual (by historic standards) highs reached in 2024.

Pegasus Insight said the increase in tenant demand comes as the supply of homes in the private rented sector remains under pressure. It's research continues to show that more landlords are decreasing the size of their portfolios as timing allows. Mark Long was quoted "“The concern is that demand is beginning to strengthen again at a time when landlord appetite for investment remains weak, with far more landlords still looking to sell property than buy."

I always take these surveys with a pinch of salt on an individual basis but it does reflect an overall pattern that we are seeing in the market. We all know what happens when supply is constrained but demand starts to grow.

That is the latest report from Rightmove. It definitely remains a buyers market in London and that means there are good opportunities. Hamptons are among the agents that are seeing landlords with cash in particular getting relative bargains.

We are helping some new landlords find their feet which is refreshing. More people in the 30's are approaching us to help them through the structuring (SPV or personal), financing and running it for them in a compliant way. Many of them are full time employed and see property as a long term investment alongside their pensions and ISAs. And now prices are at a level where the numbers are making complete sense. Maybe this is the answer to where new supply is coming from?

So according to Rightmove's data, what is happening in the housing market? 🏠

👉 Average asking prices of newly listed homes for sale have fallen by 2.0% in August to £364,999, the largest August price drop since 2018.

👉The number of homes for sale is at a 12-year high for this time of year, giving buyers more choice and increasing competition between sellers.

👉 Given continued geopolitical uncertainty and mortgage rate volatility, Rightmove have revised our 2026 asking price forecast to a range of 0% to -2% for the year as a whole.

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Knight Frank's quarterly survey of more than 35 small and volume housebuilders, released last week, points to further declines in housing delivery in the months ahead. Eight-in-ten developers said site visits and reservations declined during Q2, and nearly six-in-ten expect reservation volumes to underperform in 2026 compared to a year earlier. As a result, a little under half expect start volumes to decline further in Q3, with the same proportion expecting no change. About 60% expect land values to fall further, while the remaining 40% expect the land market to trade flat.

None of this points to any solutions to a supply side crisis in housing. The only question is whether that will translate into higher prices for existing homes over time (I can't see how it doesn't) and if so how long that will take to come through.

Bellway became the latest housebuilder to call on the government to do more to increase housebuilding yesterday, following a similar request from Taylor Wimpey last week.

"We call on the Government to act now to improve access to housing across all tenures, both by helping first-time buyers onto the property ladder and supporting the delivery of affordable and social housing for those who need it most," chief executive Jason Honeyman said in a trading update. "In order to ease affordability constraints and stimulate demand, an immediate reduction in Stamp Duty alongside a Government-backed deposit support scheme for first-time buyers would both drive economic growth and accelerate the delivery of much-needed new homes across the country."

Hard to argue with the ever increasing calls. But I am sure some will anyway.

Goodlord (a leading referencing company) has reported it found fake employment references surged 226% last year, while referee fraud and identity manipulation also rose sharply as criminals have used AI to vastly improve their attacks on vulnerable landlords. These fraudsters range from drug gangs to professional rent dodgers.

Fraudsters are using AI to create entire fake tenant identities, complete with bogus employers, doctored ID and invented referees. Criminals target self-managing landlords who do not have the time or experience to keep up with the latest techniques used to defraud them. But they are also a threat to anyone who rents, including agents.

Its analysis reveals incidences of suspected fraud up by almost 40% during 2025 compared with the previous year. The trend in 2026 is another increase.

Our advice? It is advisable to use professional referencing companies. We have always operated this way as a compliance and risk focussed management company. But we have really seen the need for extra checks grow, especially with the lengthening of eviction timelines. We also offer rent guarantee to our clients as standard as protecting your revenue becomes professional landlords number one priority. There is no GUARANTEED way to avoid tenant fraud - but the smart approach can reduce it.

For landlords who have property in Harrow we have created a guide for the selective licence schemes that are now active in 2026. The fines for not being licensed are up to £40,000 and courts can mandate a repayment of rent to your tenants of up to two years. So this is not something that landlords should take lightly and if you are exposed then act swiftly.

The guide sets out what you need to know, what areas are in scope and how professional help can help you manage the complex requirements of licensing.

If you are overseas and self-managing then you need to pay special attention as you need a local representative to sign a declaration taking responsibility for meeting the conditions of the licence. This person or organisation needs to be properly trained and understand these responsibilities.

We are a Propertymark company and would recommend that you use a suitably qualified outfit if you are licensed. The penalties for non-compliance are severe and councils are taking a much more aggressive approach to targeting landlords for fines. If they knock you really do want someone on your side who understands the rules so you can prove you are compliant.

This is of course part of a wider issue but there are unconfirmed reports that fraudsters are targeting landlords for banking scams. So a timely reminder for all landlords to be aware of this and to protect yourselves appropriately. There are some easy steps you can take including just being aware - always call the bank back if you are not sure and only use their official numbers from your cards or account.

Be cautious if someone:

• Claims there is suspicious activity on your account and demands immediate action.
• Pressures you to remain on the phone while carrying out actions online.
• Directs you to a website, live chat or link you were not expecting.
• Asks you to download software or applications to your device.
• Requests that you authorise, amend, reverse or re-authorise a payment.
• Seeks passcodes, activation codes or other security information.
• Encourages you to bypass your usual business processes or security checks.

We are reading a lot about AI and how it will replace property management. But what is the reality so far? Obviously none of us have a crystal ball and even what can be achieved today looked crazy 5 years ago to most businesses. But as of today who is using AI and is it actually saving money and time?

Our experience has been mixed. It has been a useful tool on some occasions but we've also had clients come to us with totally incorrect advice they got from AI. So the real power is in the review we've found. If you don't know what you are looking at then AI can actually be dangerous. If you do then it can speed up tasks - but not eliminate them. Well not if you are doing them properly as human oversight is still needed.

So for us we see AI as a tool that the industry should be integrating into its workflow, but cautiously. Like all tools in the wrong hands and used the wrong way it can cause a lot of unintended consequences. Some of which can end up costing landlords possession hearings and potentially thousands in fines and RROs. So at the moment it's not really changing the way things are done and not created a lot of efficiency when you consider the other tasks it has created. But used carefully it does have potential.

WARNING - CONTAINS PROMO

Just a heads up for anyone who is struggling with self assessment or MTD. We have partnered with landlordaccounts.co.uk for our clients to get free MTD for the first year if they sign up to have their self-assessment for 25/26 done. The cost for the self assessment starts at £350 for a single property self-assessment with PAYE income. All four MTD submissions will be done free of charge on the basis of information provided. This includes software.

Just email admin@landlordaccounts.co.uk and mention that we referred you and they will honour the offer.

The deadline for the first submission was today and many have missed it. If you have don't panic. There is no financial penalty and if you get on track then the late submission will clear from your account.

This was in the period from 2013 to 2022. Of this approximately 80% were first time buyers getting onto the property ladder.

The figures also show that Government actually MADE money on these loans - £1.24bn at the last count.

So real question? Why did the scheme prove so unpopular and why was it scrapped? On the numbers it not only achieved what it set out to (get people on the housing ladder) but it also made money instead of costing the country.

That is one of the findings of the latest TDS Charitable Foundation survey. As long term landlords will be aware from their applications it has become far more common to receive applications from those on benefits. And therefore it has become more important to understand that each situation is different and should be judged on its merits.

It is also of course illegal to discriminate against those on benefits.

So the best way to stay compliant is to treat each applicant equally regardless of their source of income. They should be assessed on the same risk criteria. A professional reference is recommended to support this. For our clients we use professional referencing supported by our own internal reviews so that landlords can make informed and legal decisions. Judgment and risk awareness have never been so important so our risk managed approach is more appropriate today than even when we started. That applies to our managed properties but also to self-managing landlords who use our compliance management support services.

There was a piece by a lifestyle journalist in the Guardian recently that did the rounds on some of the property groups. It claimed that the there were actually no landlords leaving the sector and that this was just an elaborate hoax. Seemed a bit far fetched to us.

We've seen a lot of landlords selling up. Landlord Action reported a late rush in eviction applications (all time records being set in 3 of the last 5 months). Some of these might not leave the sector but many presumably will (having to go through an eviction process often proves the last straw). Instructions on Zoopla and Rightmove for ex-rentals have been very high the last 12 months.

So what are landlords seeing on the ground? We won't have reliable information for at least a year purely on the basis of how slow the market is. But is the journalist right that this was all a big hoax? Or is it that we've not yet seen the full impact on the market yet and more landlords are in the process of leaving?

We are still very early in the new era of regulation but the results of this survey from Savills suggests the impact has been worse than many landlords thought it would be. That is possibly linked the 24% still not fully understanding their obligations. That is what we are seeing with new instructions - compliance is a specialist area and the reality is most landlords did not invest in property to become a compliance expert. So it makes sense that landlords seek out specific help to assist them self-managing.

What is encouraging is that 35% of landlords have already made adjustments to the way they operate. That will include using outsourced services like Compliance Shield.

Although the rules are in place there are still many aspects of the RRA that are to come and the one thing that is certain over the next couple of years is that change will be the new norm. And it is those landlords that adapt which will survive. The ones that don't are the most likely to be hit with large fines and Rent Repayment Orders that will wipes out years of rent.

Definitely a survey to keep an eye on to see how sentiment evolves.

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There has been a large increase in meritless complaints being made to the council from tenants looking for a rent repayment. Last week one of our landlords was contacted by the council to look into a complaint in relation to the lifts in the building. He has a flat on the fifth floor which is rented out. This is a large development and he's one of 300 flats in there - so clearly no control over the communal areas other than paying the service charge. The lift has been out of commission a few times this year and is scheduled for maintenance next week to fix an ongoing problem. That is frustrating but not abnormal with lifts.

So the tenant requested a 25% rent rebate for the past 6 months (they'd never complained before). The landlord quite rightly politely declined and did say he would report the issue to the management company. The tenant then threatened to report him to the council. He passed it on to us at that point. We politely informed them that the communal areas are not in his control and there was not anything he could do except report it to the management company. So they reported him!

We were able to step in and explain the situation to the enforcement officer and no other action will follow. But it is another reminder that the life of a landlord has become more risky with tenants using AI to write complaints in the hope of extracting cash from the landlord.

In this case it was clearly a stupid claim and rightly dismissed. But it still required us to show evidence to support the landlord's position. And that is something all landlords need to be aware of. This landlord had our support with Compliance Shield so everything was there. But it was still a stressful situation before we stepped in.

Twenty7tec’s market intelligence has recorded more than 450,000 individual mortgage product amendments since the beginning of 2026, highlighting the continued pace of change across the mortgage market.

The pace of change underlines for landlords for important it is to identify the right deal early and to lock it in. In a period of instability it makes sense to plan early.

Curious how many people have a regular broker? In many cases it is a good relationship to form and certainly it has helped in building my portfolio.

That's the story from the latest RICS balance of opinion survey (taken from Savills). It measures RICS surveyors sentiment - what they are seeing on the ground. They report if they are seeing supply and demand increase or decrease month on month. It's a good indication as most property is leveraged which requires a RICS valuation from the lender. So what is it telling us?

Well it shows that tenant demand has flattened in the last couple of years after huge increases in demand between 2021 and 2023 (the period of highest rent growth). That has flattened since late 2024 with falls in late 2025 now seeing small increases.

The bigger story is on the supply side. That has been falling for almost the entire 5 year period. So the same demand with less supply. That is still upward pressure on rents in the medium to long term.

On the sales side the results reflect what we are seeing on the ground. A market that has stalled on both sides. The increase in supply in 2024 has faded as sellers have adjusted to the fact that they won't be able to achieve 2022 prices. Equally buyers are not in the market is there is zero confidence in both property and the wider economy. So those that have sold up have taken a haircut in order to exit.

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A recent report by TwentyCi pointed to a heightening of down-valuations affecting mortgages. This is hardly a surprise in a market that is struggling for confidence against a wider economic crisis. However, it is directly impacting property transactions for landlords looking to sell or to buy and something anyone buying or selling needs to make note of.

Most landlords think that valuations are more scientific than they are in reality and therefore cannot be influenced. However, this is not entirely true. Valuation remain highly subjective but valuers are conservative by nature and will look only towards negative indicators. In order to make your valuation stand up one technique used by more experienced investors is to provide the valuer with a pack that supports the value stated. That includes your own comparable data, which in many cases will be more relevant if you really understand the property.