Tax allowance using my home as an office for my BTL's

[UH-lettings]

Hi guys newbie here, been a landlord over 10 years with 3 BTL properties learnt a few things or two over the years and have slowly perfected the skill of using as much of my tax allowance where possible almost! , as we draw closer to the deadline of the 31st Jan, wanted to dot the i's and cross the T's before i hand in my self assessment and was wondering can i claim for office expense as i use my study/office room at home to do a lot of the A to Z work on running 3 of my BTL's. Managed to find the following from the HMRC
3. Working from home


Calculate your allowable expenses using a flat rate based on the hours you work from home each month.

This means you don’t have to work out the proportion of personal and business use for your home, eg how much of your utility bills are for business.

The flat rate doesn’t include telephone or internet expenses. You can claim the business proportion of these bills by working out the actual costs.

You can only use simplified expenses if you work for 25 hours or more a month from home.

25 to 50	£10
51 to 100	£18
101 and more	£26

but dont know if this applies to me?? im aware i can claim for stationary paper/printer ink/ phone calls/ internet costs at a % etc etc. i would say i use the office around on average 20 odd hours per month for BTL's purposes, any help would be appreciated .

many thanks

https://www.property118.com/claiming...ndlords/29305/

[Gordon999]

Do you have a full time job some paying monthly salary ?

How are you going to prove you are doing 20 hours per month work in your office ?

Do you buy a time card stamping machine and clock in/out every time you need to work ?

For most months I think you only spend 15 minutes time to check the rent money has been paid on the bank statement

The danger of claiming an office in your home, is that you may not get full exemption to capital against tax for principal residence after you sell your home.

[leaseholder64]

Also you may have to pay business rates for that part of the building.

[UH-lettings]

Hi Gordon, im currently employed full time and no i cant prove in terms of actual hours spent, just trying to find ways of squeezing as much as i can out of the tax man with regards to allowance, i stumbled across two web sites both saying it is possible to claim the basic but not sure how credible/accurate this information is ??

http://landlordmoneysaving.com/home-...for-landlords/
https://www.property118.com/claiming...ndlords/29305/

[jpkeates]

Many accountants suggest a claim of £208 (£4 a week) will pass without comment.
They may ask you to confirm you do "substantive amounts" of work (i.e. more than open post or take messages) - which most landlords who compile data for a tax return probably do.

I do that and it's never been queried.
The claim doesn't have any impact on business rates or proceeds on disposal, because the claim is simply to offset the use of the facility and its resources, there's no specific proportion of the building set aside.

There's a school of thought that argues that the saving isn't worth making the claim for.

[DPT57]

I also charge £18 per month, although if I added in the time I spend on forums I could probably claim the £26!

[UH-lettings]

thanks everyone for your input

[bhodgkiss]

Is that £4 a week per BTL you have, or total please?

[Wannadonnadoodah]

20 hours per month on paperwork/admin for 3 properties?

[boletus]

My accountant advised the £208 pa as per the guidance and I've been claiming it for years. (Must be due an increase now to keep up with inflation?)

[Smilerkel86]

Boletus where would I put this claim for £208 on my form? I have two buy to lets i spend so much of my time sorting out my tenants (2 complex families with money problems and relationship breakdowns) i feel like a social worker 😩

[boletus]

Mine goes under legal, management and other professional fees.