Landlords need a VAT break

The RICS has recently called for a cut in VAT from 15% to 5% on the costs of bringing empty homes back into reuse. Currently a landlord refurbishing a property for rent where it has stood empty for 2 or more years will only have to pay VAT at 5 rather than 15%.

Special discounted rates of landlord insurance

The RICS is calling for this VAT break to be extended to all empty properties.

This is to be supported as any encouragement to kick start property development and give developer landlords a helping hand in this difficult housing market has to be applauded.


If only a tenth of the country’s three quarters of a million empty homes could be brought back into use, there would be no need for any family to remain homeless and in temporary accommodation this Christmas, it said. But although help had been given to homeowners facing the possibility of repossessed, little had been done to help those who do not have a home to lose.


In making the call RICS has added its voice to a growing chorus demanding a reduction of VAT from 15 per cent to 5 per cent on home maintenance and improvement.

The Halifax has also called for the change. ‘We would like the Government to extend the 5 per cent rate of VAT for renovating an empty home to all properties vacant for more than six months not just those properties that have been un-occupied for more than two years’, said Halifax economist Martin Ellis.

For the Federation of Master Builders, Director of External Affairs at the Federation of Master Builders Brian Berry said there are currently 850,000 empty homes in the UK which could be brought back into use.

I would go further. Why should a landlord developer pay VAT at all. Currently new builds are zero rated. This to me is a massive anomaly. Surely a house, a home, a rental property has the same value to it's occupier and society whether it has been fashioned out or virgin ground or simply been refurbished from an empty building or property. Lets not make a value judgement about where a house has come from. Landlords refurbishing an uninhabitable building for rent play an equal part in helping to house our society as those building from new. Lets have a VAT and tax system that reflects this.