UK Landlord Forum / Life

I have a large house and am considering a lodger. It is possible to allow the lodger sole access to the central heating oil for rooms allocated to him .This would be convenient to both parties as he would be responsible and pay the oil supplier direcly. I assume this is legal and would not count in regard to the £7500 rent a room allowance.

On a similar but different subject

As I am 80 .,it occured to me that someone might be happy to help in the garden and that would be recognised by me when setting a rent. Does that have possibly unseen consequences for me .

As you can see i am trying to maximise the opportunities to keep below the £7500 limit but still provide recognisable value to a lodger.

I would appreciate expert opinion. Many thanks




Thank you

Someone paying rent partially in work technically might cause an issue, but it's so unlikely in real life. Technically the value of the work is like income and should be taxable. But unless that would take you into another tax bracket it's not going to matter.

I know an older lady with a lodger who trades jobs for bits of rent and it's just not an issue.

One simple way round it is simply to accept that rent is (say) £100 a week and declare £5200 as income, even if most of it is paid in cash and the rest was earned by gardening. It's hard enough keeping track when rent's paid in cash anyway.

Quote from: confusedone on March 12, 2024, 03:31:36 PMIt is possible to allow the lodger sole access to the central heating oil for rooms allocated to him .This would be convenient to both parties as he would be responsible and pay the oil supplier direcly.

How would this work?

Presumably you have one oil tank that feeds oil to your one boiler that supplies heated water to all the radiators in the house.

What exactly do you mean that by "allow the lodger sole access to the central heating oil for rooms allocated to him"?

Are you suggesting that you will be turning the radiator valves off for all rooms that are not allocated to the lodger? i.e. you won't be heating the other rooms at all?

And what about the domestic hot water for the taps? Presumably it's the same boiler that heats the DHW as heats the radiators?

It would sadden me if I even thought HMRC had you on their target list.

Just do whatever is easiest here and don't over-worry about it. There are plenty of [rogue] Landlords with more skin in the game who will [should] be the target of HMRC.

I don't even account for every penny now... I used to have individual line items for every expense throughout a year - HMRC don't want to see anything like that, it's of no interest to them at all - they may want to see that if they decide to come down on you - but all they want reporting is "yes/no" answers and some totals... then they want the £s, of course, if due.

The fact that there are so many Landlords doing truly dodgy things is not because they're canny super-villains, it's because HMRC doesn't have the resources to chase them up, their biggest reliance is on their threats coupled with our honesty... and if you take a simple route of declaration I am pretty sure you will be fine.

I am not encouraging people to con HMRC - every January is painful for me, personally - I'm just hinting that having some balance and some understanding of how it all works will lead you to the conclusion that they don't really care. I err on the side of thinking, for tax purposes, this can just be Rent-a-Room with no complicated declarations or quid-pro-quos associated, but maybe I miss the point?

Now, Council Tax, on the other hand... are there any implications there, or not? Those buggers will care.

Yes council tax,  The Stazi of the civil service. I have just had a further attempt by them (Yes you, Warwick D.  C.  ) to get the freehold company to pay one of the new owner' s tax, despite him contacting them. He in turn is being told that as of last month, he could owe 3x tax this year, as the previous owner had left it vacant due to caring for a relative.

AS for this query, I agree. There is no need to sweat it.The tax people won' t pounce. I long ago gave up saving every Wilco receipt, the accountant sticks on an appropriate amount. What is most important is making a careful choice about the lodger.   

Thankyou for all your very helpful replies.Much appreciated.
Yes, I do have seperate heating and water/   as i said, a big house.