Should you incorporate your property portfolio?

Potentially, yes — a transfer is treated as a disposal at market value.

However, if your portfolio qualifies as a property business under section 162 TCGA 1992, you can defer the CGT by rolling the gain into the cost of your shares.

The gain is not cancelled — it sits inside the company until the shares are sold.

We assess your eligibility before any transfer is made.

Yes. When a company acquires properties, SDLT is charged on the market value — even if the company is owned entirely by you.

This applies even where section 162 CGT relief is available — the two are separate taxes.

We model the full SDLT liability as part of the feasibility analysis.

Most residential mortgage lenders tend to not permit properties to be transferred into a company while the existing mortgage remains in place.

In practice, this means most landlords need to refinance at commercial rates.

The mortgage impact is factored into our feasibility analysis.

A RICS survey is a physical inspection commissioned by a lender to establish lending value and delivered by a chartered surveyor .

A tax valuation is an accountant's professional assessment of market value for a specific tax purpose — supporting a CGT calculation or a section 162 relief claim.

A tax valuation is prepared for a specific tax purpose and may be used to support the tax analysis, subject to HMRC review if required.

Often, it is worth considering, but whether it is preferable depends on financing, ownership plans, tax rates, and the intended use of profits.

We can set up the company and advise on the right structure before your next purchase - if incorporation is appropriate.

The full process — valuation, section 162 assessment, SDLT calculation, company formation and property transfer — typically takes four to eight weeks.

Timeline depends on the complexity of the portfolio and the speed of conveyancing.