Investing in property isn’t as attractive as it once was. Too many people were doing too well out of it and it was only a matter of time before the treasury got their slice of the pie. Firstly they changed the rules on tax relief from a mortgage, meaning tax relief was only allowed on the interest part of the mortgage and not the whole mortgage amount, which made a big difference if you were on a repayment mortgage. Also year on year they have reduced the personal allowance for capital gains tax. When we bought two buy to let properties in 2016 the personal allowance was £12 000, so because the properties were bought in joint names we had an overall allowance of £24 000. We sold one of the properties in November last year, by which time the personal allowance had reduced to £3000 each so £6000. Needless to say we had a rather large Capital Gains Tax bill to pay within 60 days of the sale. There is also PAYE to pay on any profits from rental income.
Then there was the issue of trying to evict a tenant, took 7 months to do it legally meaning a rent shortfall of over £5000.
I’m sure others will have different experiences, but for me with the taxation and the risks involved, all that glitters isn’t gold in property investment.