A poll of 50 leading mortgage brokers has discovered that three quarters report their portfolio landlord clients getting ready to offload some or all their properties if the Chancellor applies National Insurance (NI) tax to their rental income.

The poll, carried out by lender Landbay, found that a quarter of brokers quizzed said their landlords were getting ready to ‘slim down’ their portfolios if they are required to pay NI, while 45% said they would sell all of their properties.

By contrast, just under a quarter of brokers of brokers said that they thought it would make no difference.  One in twenty brokers thought their landlord clients might expand their portfolio.

Earlier this year it was leaked that the Chancellor Rachel Reeves believes this extra tax on landlords will raise £.3 billion for the Government – as she struggles to plug a reported multi-billion-pound hole in the nation’s finances.

Not broken

“Rachel Reeves is looking for tax raising measures that will enable Labour to claim it has not broken its election promise to increase VAT, income tax or NI,” says Landbay spokesperson Rob Stanton.

“But she may not raise as much as she expects. The amount of tax she hopes to raise is based on ONS figures which show that, during the most recent tax year data published (2022/3), some 2.2 million landlords received £27 billion in rental income.

“I am worried this might backfire though. First, she’s not going to raise that much if a million landlords sell-up, however resilient the sector is in the face of market interference.

“Second, this could drive up rents – as demand for rental property outstrips diminishing supply and remaining landlords look to recoup the cost by raising rents. That could exacerbate the housing crisis for renters.

“If there’s a positive here, given that smaller landlords are the ones most likely to leave the market, this could lead to increasing professionalisation of the private rented sector – and drive moves to limited company structures as landlords look to adapt to the change.”