Hurrah, my MFW quest has started

abouttimetoo

Just a quick hello to say that I'm on holiday this week :j and have used some of my time to go through my various accounts, check things out etc. I've so far concentrated on the mortgage side of things but this week I want to look at my savings/investments and bottom out what is going on there.

I've also got a meeting with an accountant to-morrow to discuss my BTL as I've realised that I'm most likely missing out on a lot of 'benefits' from a tax perspective (when I say 'realised' I mean from reading other posts :rolleyes: ) so I'm looking forward to understanding my position in greater detail

gallygirl

How did meeting go? I'm interested as I too have a BTL & don;t use an accountant but think I pretty much have a handle on what I can/can't claim.

Is your BTL mortgage IO? If not, it would be better if it was & you converted part of your own IO mortgage to repayment for the equivalent amount IYSWIM. Although maybe not possible in current claimate, but all will be fixed in economy & house prices will be rising again when your remortgage comes up :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: .

Re your own mortgage, as it makes no difference financially I'd be inclined to OP on repayment. This is falling anyway each month and the OP's will make it fall quicker so you will really see progress :T , which will inspire you even further. Check with BS if you can get OP's back, with no penalty, then you can OP to your heart's content and claw back if you need a car etc.

Hope you are enjoying your week off

Welshlassie

Hi ATT
Thought I'd stop in and say hi. I'd also be interested to hear how you did at the accountants. We've also got a BTL and our accountant last year told us not to bother submitting anything on the self assessment because we broke even, not sure how this works, but he appartently knows what he's talking about.
I'd be more inclined to pay the OP off the IO part of the mortgage as (I think) this will save you more interest in the long term.

Good luck with your quest.

abouttimetoo

ali007 wrote: »

How did meeting go? I'm interested as I too have a BTL & don;t use an accountant but think I pretty much have a handle on what I can/can't claim.

Is your BTL mortgage IO? Check with BS if you can get OP's back, with no penalty, then you can OP to your heart's content and claw back if you need a car etc.

Hope you are enjoying your week off

Hi ali007

I guess the meeting went quite well in terms of confirming what I thought to be right. The bottom line is I’m not missing out on anything . I did do my research a couple of years ago when I first got into the BTL but it’s still good to know all is well.

My BTL is a proper BTL mortgage, therefore IO. As I only break even each year – and the BTL interest rate is higher than my residential mortgage – I’m not going to tinker with the current situation, swap some of my residential mortgage to BTL etc.

I see what you say about OP’ing on the repayment part but I’ve decided this year to throw the OP’s at the IO part – it would just be nice to see it start and come down a bit :T and I’m also considering swapping some or all of it to repayment.

One of the things I haven’t done so far is ask if I can get OP’s back so thanks for the prompt, I’ll give mortgage company a call today.

PS yes, I’m really enjoying my week off, :j :j I don’t get to spend much time at home so I always appreciate it and the last time I was on holiday I was away skiing, and although it was a great holiday, it still wasn’t spending time at home which is what I really love

abouttimetoo

Hi Welshlassie

My accountant said something a bit different, he said he supposed I could just not submit a tax return because like you I had just broke even, but he recommended honesty as being the best policy as if and when I did make a profit/come to submit a tax return the revenue would be likely to ask when the additional source of income began and start asking questions etc. The one area I was naïve in when I originally set the BTL up was that I didn’t realise you had to advise the revenue if you had an additional source of income whether or not you were making any profit; the last bit is the pertinent bit for me as I knew you had to advise if you gained another income but I unfortunately believed that it was only if you were going to make a profit.

It sounds like your accountant was a bit more direct than mine by telling you not to bother, mine clearly wasn’t prepared to say that and would only tell me what I should do in his opinion and then leaves the actual decision up to me.:rolleyes:

Regarding the OP’ing, yes, I’ve decided to throw them at the IO part not least because it will be nice to see the flippin balance come down for once

abouttimetoo

Hi all

Things I want to do today while l've got time with being on holiday

Contact mortgage company to see if
· I can claim OP’s back if I ever need to - no I can't but I can use them to 'cover' a repayment holiday if I ever need to
· Whether they do any offset accounts using my ISA (I didn’t even know that was possible but saw on another thread that some mortgage providers do that – who knew! :rolleyes: - nope, they don't. Ah well, you don't know if you don't ask
· Sort some other ISA admin out
· Contact sharedealing company to sort out an anomaly that is showing on my on-line account with them - so far spent nearly 2 hours today on the phone with 5 separate calls and 4 different people and still not much further forward - just making a cup of coffee to 're-group' and can feel my blood pressure rising as a result of various !!!! ups:mad:

abouttimetoo

Hi all

Just a quick one to say I've made a £300 May overpayment today :j :j

I've decided to concentrate on the IO part for a while, it will be grrrrrrreat (as Tony used to say for those of us who are old enough to remember the Frostys advert :rolleyes: ) to see the IO balance coming down for once - I hate seeing it never move!

Best wishes to you all for your own Op's this month

Now off to PM bellsbells

evab_2

ooh well done on overpayment, thats a nice sum this month

Ev x

abouttimetoo

Hi all

Can't believe it's a month since I last posted - I had to blow the dust off my thread (I saw another post say that and it made me laugh so thought I'd borrow the phrase). Just to report that i've made my June overpayment today so that's another £300 off the icky interest only part:D I can't wait to ring my mortgage provider next week to get an updated balance, i sooo wish i could see it on-line as some of you can.

Much to my annoyance i still haven't got around to resolving the share and gas situation :eek:

Best wishes with your own OP's this month, just off to PM bellsbells with my update:j

StuartGMC

Well done; you're overpaying more than me, which makes me cringe at where our money is going, especially as our ISA Funds all turned negative yesterday, but hey, it's what you expect in short term cases.

Keep up the good work