UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi,

I rent out a flat in a block with 8 other flats and the council is the leaseholder. The block is due to get a new roof installed (felt type) and its been due for some time. The cost of this will be quite expensive lets say around £9k per flat (total cost divided by the number of of flats) all of the work being arranged by the leaseholder and I will get an invoice once done. I understand I can deduct this against rental income as it's general maintenance and repairs.

What I would like to do is spread the deduction over 3 years, so put £3k a year for general maintenance for 3 years in my tax returns. As its a sizeable sum and for the 3 years it would be roughly equal my rental profit and therefore reduce the amount of tax I have to pay for the 3 years, rather than the one year.

I was wondering if anyone has any advice on how I could do this and its even possible and above board?

One option is to ask the leaseholder to invoice me for the work over 3 years which I don't think they are willing to do, other option is to get a loan but I would end up paying interest which i'm not to keen on. Any ideas, can i just spread the cost over 3 years?

Thanks for you help,

Johnny.

You can make a loss one year and carry it forward in accounting terms, I believe. Do a bit of research, see if I'm barking up the right tree.

Be wary of advice from a forum especially my own.
Do your own research

Hippo is barking up the RIGHT tree.
You can carry forward a loss without limitation and this will offset your income for future years
Each year the overhanging loss is carried forward to the following year.
The tax assessment you have been completing each year has boxes for exactly that.
You do not need to break up your costs in the way you describe.

Best of luck

A cost of £9k per flat seems a bot excessive to me. I would question these costs as we had an entire roof replaced with tiles for a similar amount.