SPVs

It’s a company set up solely for the purposes of purchasing, holding, or renting out property, and nothing else.

So if you’re a part-time landlord thinking of setting up a limited company for tax purposes, and your business makes all of its income from property, it’s an option that could work for you.

An SPV offers many significant advantages over owning property on your own name. Firstly, there are tax advantages, although there may be little or no tax advantages for less than 3 or 4 properties, there are still other benefits. 

1. You can ringfence property, which means that each property/SPV is an entity in its own right, which is unaffected by the other, this could have distinct advantages with financing, especially now that the stress tests are so important.

2. You can invest as a group, or family, with each party being able to invest any amount and receive shares in proportion to their investment.

3. You can add your children, under 18s cannot own property, but they can own shares, an SPV enables you to spread the ownership of your assets as you wish.

4. Very flexible, the transfer of anything from a single share, to the entire SPV along with the relevant property is very simple.

An SPV can hold multiple properties and can be used to quickly expand your property portfolio; instead of paying Income as an individual, an SPV will pay Corporation Tax on any profits made. Since Corporation Tax is charged at 19%, there can be significant tax benefits to owning a property via an SPV for higher rate tax payers who might be charged 40% or more, so you could be left with more capital to re-invest.

When it comes to getting a mortgage on a buy-to-let property, it can be easier for the mortgage provider to underwrite the application from an SPV than from a normal trading company. As the SPV is kept separate from your own personal liabilities, lenders also tend to offer a more generous mortgage calculation. Because all of the SPV’s income and liabilities are tied to the property, it makes it simpler to assess whether the SPV can cover the mortgage repayments and management fees. As a result, more mortgage products are available to SPVs than other limited companies.

Trading companies’ multiple income streams and multiple liabilities make them a bigger risk for mortgage providers. You can still get a buy-to-let mortgage if you register as a trading company rather than an SPV; you’ll just have less choice about the mortgage providers (and mortgage products) that you can use.

Your company will own the property, and as you own your company, you’ll ultimately own the property. If you have a mortgage on the property, your lender will still have the same rights over the property should you fall into arrears as with any other mortgage.

Yes you can. However, it’s rarely economically viable with only one or two properties.

That’s because in most cases you’ll personally need to sell the property, and your company will then need to buy it. This means you’ll have to pay capital gains tax personally on the sale, and your company will need to pay Stamp Duty on the purchase (with a surcharge of 3% which applies to buy-to-let investors and limited companies). You may also then have to pay early repayment charges for exiting your mortgage early.

Although you can register a company and take care of everything directly, there is quite a lot to sort out and you will also need a registered office and to file your returns on time, to avoid penalties, however I am able to take care of all of this for you.

Next you’ll need:

A company name. You’ll need to choose something that nobody else has – and you can search the existing register to see if someone else has used your idea before.

A company address. This must be a physical address in the UK; you can use your own home address, but be aware this will be visible on the Companies House register. If you have an office, consider using that instead.

At least one director. They need to be at least 16 years old.

Details for the shareholders. The shareholders are the owners of the business, and can be the same as the directors. You need at least one, but can have as many as you like.

You also need:

A memorandum and articles of association. These record the shareholders’ agreement to form the company, and the written rules. There are templates available on the government website.

Details of anyone with significant control (PSC). This includes anyone with 25% of more of the shares.

An SPV is a non-trading company, existing exclusively for buying, selling and letting property.

If you also want to trade in any other kind of product or service – for example, offering property maintenance, where you employ tradespeople as full-time staff and advertise your services to the general public – you can roll all of your business together into a trading company.

A third option is to simply have two businesses: an SPV for your property dealings, and a trading company for whatever else it is you do.

If you require any help with an SPV, or if you would like me to set this up for you, please feel free to get in touch.