“What can I actually claim?” is one of the questions we get asked most often by landlords, and it's a fair one — the rules aren't always intuitive, and getting it wrong in either direction causes problems. Claim too little and you're paying more tax than you need to. Claim too much, or claim the wrong things, and you're storing up a problem for later.
The general rule
The starting principle for allowable expenses is that they need to be incurred wholly and exclusively for the purpose of renting out the property. That sounds simple, but a lot of the confusion landlords run into comes from costs that sit somewhere in the middle — partly business, partly personal, or partly capital improvement rather than day-to-day running cost.
What's usually claimable
Day-to-day running costs are generally the safest ground: letting agent fees, landlord insurance, ground rent and service charges, accountancy fees for managing the property's tax affairs, and the cost of repairs and maintenance that keep the property in its existing condition rather than improving it. Utility bills you pay on the tenant's behalf, and reasonable costs of finding and vetting new tenants, are usually claimable too. So are the ongoing running costs of getting the property let — advertising, referencing checks, and similar.
The mortgage interest question
This is where a lot of landlords get caught out, because the rules changed significantly a few years back for individual landlords. Mortgage interest on a residential rental property is no longer deducted directly from rental income before working out your tax bill in the way it once was — instead it's given as a tax credit at a set rate. That's a meaningfully different outcome to how business costs are normally treated, and it's one of the main reasons landlords ask us whether a limited company structure would suit them better, since companies are taxed differently on finance costs.
What you generally can't claim
Capital improvements — extending the property, adding an extension, or upgrading it well beyond its original condition — usually aren't claimable as a running cost against rental income in the year you spend the money. They typically get factored in later, against any gain when you sell, rather than against annual rental profit. The distinction between a repair (claimable) and an improvement (not, in the same way) trips up a lot of landlords, and it's worth checking before you assume a big piece of work is deductible straight away.
Personal use of the property, and costs that would exist whether or not you were letting it out, generally aren't claimable either.
Keeping the records to back it up
Even a straightforwardly claimable cost isn't much use to you at tax time without something to back it up. A receipt, an invoice, or a bank statement line showing what was paid and when — kept as you go rather than gathered in a rush before a deadline — is what actually lets you claim confidently rather than guessing what you spent eighteen months ago. This matters more for landlords than almost anyone else, because rental expenses tend to be spread across a whole year of smaller costs rather than a handful of big ones, which makes them easy to lose track of if there's no system behind it.
Personal ownership vs. limited company ownership
How your portfolio is structured changes some of these answers. Property held personally is taxed under Income Tax rules, with the mortgage interest treatment described above. Property held through a limited company is taxed differently, under Corporation Tax, with its own set of rules around allowable costs and finance charges. Neither is automatically better — it depends on your portfolio size, your other income, and your plans for growth — which is exactly why this is a conversation worth having properly rather than assuming one setup suits everyone.
Getting it right before it becomes a problem
The honest answer to “can I claim this?” is usually “it depends,” and getting a definitive read on your specific situation matters more than a generic list. We work with landlords with a single buy-to-let and with growing portfolios across property types, personally owned and through limited companies, and one of the most valuable things we do is simply keep this side of things clean and correctly categorised as you go, rather than trying to reconstruct it at year-end. If you want a proper look at how your portfolio's expenses and structure stack up, our landlord accounting page sets out how we work with property owners, or get in touch directly and we'll talk through your specific situation.