'Tenant Tax' landlords fighting back against HMRC

Buy-to-let landlords Steve Bolton and Chris Cooper, will take to the stand on 6th October to carry out the next stage of the campaign that they launched in a bid to challenge former Chancellor George Osborne’s decision to restrict the amount of tax relief landlords are able to claim on mortgage interest - Section 24 of the Finance Act (No 2) Act 2015 (Formerly Clause 24).

The date has been pushed back from it's original mid-September schedule, after HMRC requested the change, noting that it's legal team were not available for the original dates.

Section 24, which is due to be phased in from April 2017 (and introduced over the course of four years), means that the amount of income tax relief that landlords can get on residential property finance costs will be restricted to the basic rate of tax. The changes will affect all landlords who let residential properties as an individual, in a partnership or trust.

Bolton and Cooper believe that the changes, if introduced, would cause the dominio effect of a hike in rents for millions of tenants, the forced sale of thousands of rented properties and a subsequent increase in homelessness - so they decided to do something about it!

The court case has been funded by crowd-funding, with the pair raising a whopping £101,000 through crowdfunding websites, mainly boosted by frustrated landlords who hope to see the taxes axed. The budget will be spent on legal representation by none other than Cherie Blair’s company Omnia Strategy LLP, which Bolton and Cooper hope will give them a good chance of victory!.