Landlord and rental income
tax returns.
Mortgage finance costs, every allowable expense, and your Self Assessment return filed and signed off by a qualified UK accountant. If Making Tax Digital applies to you, we handle the quarterly updates too.
Free to sign up. See every expense you're owed before you pay anything.
Most landlord returns: £250 fixed. Multiple properties may be Specialist at £500.
Your tax return, whether or not you're in Making Tax Digital yet.
Every landlord with rental income still files a Self Assessment return, and that is what most people are here for. Making Tax Digital is a separate change layered on top, and it only applies once your qualifying income passes a threshold. Some landlords are in it now, many are not yet, and plenty never will be. Either way, we file your return.
- 01
If you're not in MTD, nothing changes for you: you file one Self Assessment return a year, the way you always have. We claim your mortgage finance cost relief and every allowable expense, one of our qualified UK accountants reviews it, and you see exactly what was claimed before it goes to HMRC. No quarterly updates, no digital record-keeping requirement.
- 02
If your qualifying income is over £50,000, you're in it now: Making Tax Digital for Income Tax went live in April 2026 for landlords and sole traders with qualifying income over £50,000. If that's you, you now have to keep digital records of your rental income and expenses and send HMRC a summary every quarter through recognised software.
- 03
If your rental receipts are between £20,000 and £50,000, it's coming: the threshold drops to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. If your rental income sits in that range, you'll be brought into Making Tax Digital at some point between now and 2028. Worth planning for now rather than in the month it starts.
- 04
The annual return never goes away: quarterly updates sit alongside the Self Assessment return, they don't replace it. Record OS files the annual return for every landlord we work with, and prepares and sends the quarterly updates for the ones who need them, with one of our qualified UK accountants reviewing everything before it reaches HMRC.
Not sure which of these is you? Signing up is free and we'll tell you plainly.
Property income is where the guesswork multiplies.
Combining rental income with a job, consulting work, or equity multiplies the judgement calls, finance costs, allowable expenses, what counts as capital. Record OS pulls it all together and shows the full, itemised breakdown before you file.
What landlords get wrong
Rental income looks simple until you look closely. The rules changed materially over the last decade, and a lot of landlords are still filing on assumptions that stopped being true. These are the ones we see most.
Mortgage interest is no longer an expense
Mortgage interest is no longer deducted as an expense against rental profit. Relief now comes as a basic-rate tax reducer applied after the profit is calculated. That's why some landlords now show a profit on paper they don't feel in the bank, and why the old mental arithmetic no longer works. This is the change often referred to as Section 24.
Repairs versus improvements
Repairs are deductible against rental income now. Improvements are capital, so they don't reduce this year's profit, but they can affect Capital Gains Tax when you sell. The line between the two catches people out constantly, particularly on kitchens, bathrooms and anything replaced with a better version.
Replacement of domestic items relief
This replaced the old wear and tear allowance. You can claim for replacing things like furniture, appliances and furnishings provided for the tenant's use, but not for the initial purchase, and only up to the cost of a like-for-like replacement.
The property allowance
A small amount of property income can be earned before it needs to be reported. If you take the allowance you can't also claim your actual expenses, so it's one or the other. Which one wins depends on how much you're actually spending on the property.
Allowable expenses landlords miss
Letting agent fees, landlord insurance, ground rent and service charges, gas and electrical safety certificates, and travel to the property for management purposes are all routinely left off returns. Individually they're small. Together, over a year, they're not.
Joint ownership
Where a property is owned jointly, the rental income is split between the owners and each reports their share. For spouses and civil partners the default split can sometimes be changed to match actual beneficial ownership, but only by making a formal election, and it can't be applied retrospectively.
Selling a rental property
Disposing of UK residential property triggers a separate reporting obligation that sits outside the annual return, with its own tighter deadline after completion. Non-resident landlords have a stricter obligation again, which can apply even where no tax is due. Waiting until the Self Assessment deadline is how penalties happen.
Tax rules summarised for guidance. Your return is prepared and reviewed by one of our qualified UK accountants.
Five steps. Full visibility the whole way through.
Provide us your information, we guide you through the process
Record OS identifies every relief and deduction you're entitled to.
One of our qualified UK accountants reviews the return and everything it claims.
You see the full breakdown, what, why, and which documents, before you sign.
Sign up. We file at one fixed price, agreed up front.
How Record OS is different
Less work for you
Upload what you've got and we take it from there. Our technology checks your documents and tells us what's missing, so you're not digging through old emails for a P60 or typing numbers into boxes.
One price, agreed before we start
Three tiers, all published on the site. You pay for the one your return falls into and that's the figure. Nothing gets added later because the return turned out to be fiddlier than it looked.
A review that looks for money
Every return goes to one of our qualified UK accountants before it's filed. They're checking the numbers, and they're also hunting for reliefs you didn't know you could claim. That second bit is most of the value.
Someone to ask
Message or call whenever something's unclear. You'll speak to someone who actually works on tax returns.
You get the working out
Your return comes with a covering letter in plain English. It says what we claimed and why, points at the document behind each claim, and flags anything where the answer wasn't obvious. Keep it. If HMRC ever comes asking, it's the thing you'll want.
We'll tell you what to change
Filing is a record of what already happened. The more useful conversation is what to do before next April, and we'll have it with you while there's still time to act.
Every Self Assessment situation
Employment, self-employment, property, foreign income, capital gains, residence. Whatever your return needs, we file it. An extra page doesn't make you someone else's problem.
Transparent. Fixed.
One fee per filing.
- Multiple self-employment (2+)
- Multiple properties (2+)
- Capital gains
- Foreign income and taxes
- VCT, EIS & SEIS investments
- Trusts, Settlements, and Estates
- Offshore funds & excess reportable income
- Temporary Repatriation Facility
- Expat, statutory residence & split-year
- Crypto, chargeable gains, complex investments
Not sure which price applies?
Book a free 15-minute call with one of our qualified UK accountants. We'll tell you which price applies and what we'll need. No UTR to hand? We can sort that on the call.
Rather just get going? Sign up free and do it at your own pace.
Before you ask
If you're a landlord with qualifying income over £50,000, yes. Since April 2026 you have to keep digital records and send quarterly updates to HMRC, alongside your annual Self Assessment return. Record OS handles both, so nothing changes for you operationally.
Two or more properties puts you in the Complex tier at £250. If the return also involves things like a property disposal, non-residence or trust ownership, it moves to Specialist at £500. The questionnaire tells you which tier you're in before you pay anything.
Honestly, if you've got one property, simple figures and no disposals, HMRC's free service will file it. You're paying us to check the work: that the numbers are right, and that every allowable expense and relief actually got claimed. Whether that's worth it depends on how much you'd have missed on your own.
Most services are one of two things. Either it's software and you fill it in, or it's an accountant and you email them your documents. We do both halves. The software handles the donkey work: reading your paperwork, spotting gaps, catching things that don't add up. Then one of our qualified UK accountants goes through it and signs it off. They decide the tax position, not the software.
Yes. Every return is prepared and signed off by our qualified UK accountants. The team includes ICAEW members and tax specialists with longstanding experience in roles at HMRC and top firms like BDO.
Yes. Message or call, and if something about your return needs talking through, we'll talk it through.
The filed return, and a covering letter that explains it in plain English: what we claimed, why, and which document each claim rests on. Where something was a judgement call, it says so and tells you how we called it.
- Company registration
- Count Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company no. 16058953
- Registered address
- 128 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX
- Contact
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- Your documents
- Your documents are stored securely and used only to prepare and review your return. See our privacy policy for how we handle your data.
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