Replies (7)
Please login or register to join the discussion.
Yes, my understanding is that the landlord can claim mileage for the purposes of visiting rental property.
The answer to that is in most
cases no. Also claim for visiting the letting agents and meeting with the accountant.
Just to take this further...
I confess that I have not encountered any landlord who claims the costs of travel/mileage; I suspect that this may be because their rental properties are often fairly close by and the small value of the claim may not be worth the "hassle" of maintaining a journey log.
However, does this mean that a landlord, residing abroad, could claim for travel to the UK, say once per year for the sole purpose of checking their rental property? Does anyone do this?
tladirect
I did have a client living in HK that had a rental property in London. They stopped using a letting agent and did fly to London solely to meet with the tenant, deal with contracts and satisfy themselves that the tenant was acceptable. The cost of the trip was claimed. I am not suggesting that this was a sensible business trip but even bad expenditure decisions are deductible.
Fred, Did the HMRC
specifically say this was acceptable, as opposed to not querying the deduction, to your knowledge?
I would agree with your point regarding "bad expenditure decisions" from a purely business/accountant's view but have found that, certainly with "small"/private landlords, their rental properties can be treated as more than just an income source - rather - more as a valuable investment; thus, expenditure which may not appear to make economic sense to onlookers can be deemed by the landlord to be necessary to protect their assets.
Provided the claim for travel expenses is "HMRC approved" in these circumstances, I would not have thought that the use of a letting agent would be entirely relevant provided that the landlord only traveled back to the UK at "reasonable" intervals, say annually or bi-annually. Incidentally, I should be interested to know if, in your example, any associated expenses such as the cost of accommodation etc involved were claimed/allowed?
Many thanks
tladirect