Tax returns, Making Tax Digital, property bookkeeping and the incorporation question for Nottingham landlords, handled remotely by phone, video and email.
The short version. Nottingham is in England, so a rental purchase attracts Stamp Duty Land Tax paid to HMRC, with the higher rates for additional dwellings sitting 5 percentage points above the standard rates since 31 October 2024. Rental profit is taxed on the UK bands, and gets its own rates of 22%, 42% and 47% from 6 April 2027. The letting is governed by the Renters' Rights Act 2025, whose first phase came into force on 1 May 2026. Licensing is the part that is genuinely local, and it is set by Nottingham City Council.
England means Stamp Duty Land Tax, filed and paid to HMRC. On a rental purchase you pay the higher rates for additional dwellings, which have been 5 percentage points above the standard rates since 31 October 2024 and bite on any additional property costing £40,000 or more: 5% to £125,000, 7% to £250,000, 10% to £925,000, 15% to £1.5 million and 17% above that. A company buying a single dwelling for more than £500,000 faces a flat 17% unless a relief applies — property rental business relief is the one most buy-to-let companies rely on, and it is subject to clawback. A buyer who has not been in the UK for at least 183 days in the preceding 12 months adds a further 2 percentage points on top of everything else.
Rental profit is taxed on the UK bands, and from 6 April 2027 property income gets its own rates of 22%, 42% and 47%, with the Section 24 finance cost reducer moving to 22%. The letting itself is governed by the Renters' Rights Act 2025, whose first phase came into force on 1 May 2026 for new and existing tenancies alike. And from April 2028 the High Value Council Tax Surcharge — an England-only measure — charges the owner, not the occupier, of residential property worth £2 million or more: £2,500 a year up to £2.5 million, £3,500 up to £3.5 million, £5,000 up to £5 million and £7,500 above that.
The surcharge is the number people get wrong most often, and getting it wrong is a three-figure error on a modest purchase and a five-figure one on a large purchase. Whichever nation you are in, capital gains tax is not devolved: a sale is taxed at 18% within the basic rate band and 24% above it, the annual exempt amount is £3,000, and both the report and the payment are due within 60 days of completion. You can run the sums on our stamp duty calculator, which covers all three UK regimes, and on the capital gains calculator.
On the ground
Nottingham is one of the few cities running all three types of property licensing at once. Since 1 December 2023 Nottingham City Council has operated mandatory HMO licensing, additional licensing and selective licensing side by side.
That combination is unusual and it matters, because the three schemes catch different properties. Mandatory licensing is the national HMO test — five or more people forming more than one household. Additional licensing extends HMO licensing to smaller shared houses that the mandatory scheme misses. Selective licensing catches ordinary privately rented homes that are not HMOs at all, in the designated part of the city. In Nottingham, a landlord can hold three properties and need three different licences under three different schemes.
The selective scheme that began on 1 December 2023 is the second the city has run, so many Nottingham landlords have been licensed continuously for years and are on a second renewal cycle. For the accounts, the useful discipline is treating licensing as a per-property cost with a known expiry date rather than as an occasional administrative event — which is also exactly what property-level bookkeeping for Making Tax Digital requires.
All three schemes sit under the Housing Act 2004 and all three are administered by Nottingham City Council. Which one applies depends on where the property is and how many people and households live in it, so the answer has to be worked out property by property rather than assumed from one address to the next.
Councils across England have had strengthened investigatory powers since 27 December 2025 under the Renters' Rights Act 2025 — to inspect properties, require documents and access data held by third parties. In a city with three overlapping licensing schemes, that makes an unlicensed property considerably easier to find.
The University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University give the city one of the larger shared-housing markets in the East Midlands, which is part of why additional licensing exists here at all — it reaches shared houses below the five-person mandatory threshold. For a landlord letting to sharers, the tax consequence is a constant flow of furniture and appliance replacement relieved under replacement of domestic items relief in ITTOIA 2005 s.311A, and a steady need to keep deductible repairs separate from capital improvements.
Working together
For a Nottingham landlord we would start by working out which of the three licensing schemes applies to each property, because the answer is genuinely different across a portfolio in this city. Then the ordinary tax work: whether Making Tax Digital has caught you, what the finance cost restriction is costing against the profit that actually reaches your bank account, and whether the properties are held in the right names — jointly held property is taxed 50:50 between spouses by default, and only a valid Form 17 declaration changes that.
We work with landlords in Nottingham remotely: phone and video calls around your working day, with records and approvals handled securely online. We do not have an office in Nottingham. What you get instead is a practice that already knows the England position: SDLT rather than whichever regime the last article assumed, the right income tax bands, and the Making Tax Digital timetable that now sits on top of both. Tell us what you own and where and we will reply within one working day with a fixed monthly fee.
We do not advise on whether to buy, sell, refinance or gear a property, in Nottingham or anywhere else. That is an investment decision and, in the case of a mortgage, regulated advice that belongs with a broker. Explaining how a tax rule works and what it costs you is a different job, and it is the one we do.
Nottingham is in England, and that settles three things at once. The tax on the purchase is SDLT, and on a buy-to-let or second home you also pay the higher rates for additional dwellings — 5 percentage points above the standard rates since 31 October 2024, on any additional property costing £40,000 or more. The tax on the profit is UK income tax bands of 20%, 40% and 45%. And the letting itself is governed by the Renters' Rights Act 2025, Phase 1 in force since 1 May 2026. What does not change with the nation: Making Tax Digital, the Section 24 finance cost restriction, and capital gains tax on a disposal are all UK-wide.
One of three, and it depends on where the property is and who lives in it. Nottingham City Council has run mandatory, additional and selective licensing alongside each other since 1 December 2023. Mandatory licensing is the national HMO test: five or more people forming more than one household, sharing a toilet, bathroom or kitchen. Additional licensing extends HMO licensing to smaller shared properties the mandatory scheme does not reach. Selective licensing applies to ordinary privately rented homes that are not HMOs, within the designated area — the selective scheme does not cover the whole city, and some properties, including those managed by housing associations, are exempt. A portfolio spread across the city can easily need all three.
Between spouses or civil partners the default is a 50:50 split under s.836 ITA 2007, regardless of who actually owns what share. A Form 17 declaration under s.837 ITA 2007 can override that, but only where the beneficial interests really are unequal and the declaration reflects the true position. It has to be made jointly, so one spouse cannot do it alone, and it must reach HMRC within 60 days of the date of the declaration — a limit with no power to extend it. It only covers income arising after the declaration date. For Making Tax Digital, your share of jointly owned property counts towards your own qualifying income, so a £50,000 rent split equally is £25,000 each for the threshold test.
Each property is taxed where it stands, and the arithmetic does not travel. A purchase in Nottingham attracts SDLT, paid to HMRC. Elsewhere in the UK it is whichever regime governs that nation: Stamp Duty Land Tax to HMRC in England and Northern Ireland, Land Transaction Tax to the Welsh Revenue Authority in Wales, and Land and Buildings Transaction Tax with an 8% Additional Dwelling Supplement to Revenue Scotland. Registration and licensing are separate again — in England the position is no national landlord register yet — Phase 2 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 brings in a Private Rented Sector Database, and the published roadmap puts that from late 2026, subject to consultation. Income tax is the part to settle deliberately, because the rates on your rental profit are a question about you rather than about any one property.
No. We work with landlords across England and the rest of the UK remotely — video, phone and email, with records and approvals handled securely online. That is deliberate rather than a limitation, because what decides your tax bill is not local knowledge but jurisdictional knowledge: which transaction tax applies on the purchase (SDLT, paid to HMRC), which income tax rates apply to the profit (UK income tax bands of 20%, 40% and 45%), which law governs the letting (the Renters' Rights Act 2025, Phase 1 in force since 1 May 2026), and the Making Tax Digital timetable on top of all of it. If one of the free calculators on this site raises a question about your own figures, send it to us and we will answer it.
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