UK Landlord Forum / Life

I have made a small loss of £1600 on my first BTL that I purchased in August.

Do I have to fill in a self assessment or can I just leave it until I eventually do make a profit ?

Do the accounts and you carry the loss forward for the next year.  Are you sure you're claiming for the right things against the income and not capital expenditure.

Hi yes I've done the accounts with just the allowable expense's and show a loss. I own the house jointly with my partner and as this house started bringing in money I've started to purchase my 2nd BTL. I expect to do this again with my 3rd and final property. I will therefore probably only show losses for the first 2 years before turning a profit.

When I've looked on line HMRC say don't bother with self assessment until you actually make some money. I'm just concerned that they might not allow my losses in future years unless I tell them now.

Quote from: gas_dude on April 24, 2015, 06:25:45 AM
Hi yes I've done the accounts with just the allowable expense's and show a loss. I own the house jointly with my partner and as this house started bringing in money I've started to purchase my 2nd BTL. I expect to do this again with my 3rd and final property. I will therefore probably only show losses for the first 2 years before turning a profit.

When I've looked on line HMRC say don't bother with self assessment until you actually make some money. I'm just concerned that they might not allow my losses in future years unless I tell them now.

That seems strange.  if you made a profit for 2 years and a loss for the 3 and a profit in 4 and 5 you wouldn't omit the 3rd year.

You're effectively doing the accounts in your head if you don't submit them and submitting a loss makes it easier for the following year as it's there in black and white what you are carrying over.

You've received an income, but effectively not declared it and they love catching people who do this, the fact that this income is not a positive is unknown before you do a submission. 

I'd ignore them personally, do your fairly simple SA and carry the loss over.