Research and analysis

Executive summary: Landlords research

Published 20 May 2025

HMRC commissioned Ipsos to conduct research among landlords based across the United Kingdom to help understand their experience of owning property generally, as well as more specific details relating to the ways in which they own property. The research covered a range of topics including: 

• investment behaviour among landlords 

• use of agents and accounting systems  

• the geographical distribution of landlords’ properties  

•  the perceived barriers to filing correct tax returns among landlords 

Ipsos used a mixed mode approach to this research which included a quantitative multi-mode (online and phone) survey and 45 to 60-minute qualitative follow-up interviews. 

The research asked a series of questions to understand landlords’ circumstances, motivations, future business plans and their need for assistance with their tax affairs.

1. Property ownership patterns among landlords

Overall, most landlords owned a property individually (93%), while smaller proportions of landlords owned properties through a company (7%) or in a partnership (5%) ^{[footnote 1]}. Landlords commonly owned unfurnished residential properties (72%) followed by furnished residential properties (26%). 

Landlords were most likely to own a small number of properties, just over half owned one property (55%), while the average number of properties owned was 3. The highest number of properties were located in the South East (22%) and London (16%). On average, landlords owned the most properties in Scotland (4) and the North East (4). Almost two-thirds of landlords (63%) reported they earned less than £20,000 of annual gross rental income from their properties and half (52%) earn less than £10,000 of profit annually.  

Underpinning these overall trends there was some evidence that different types of landlords have different types of ownership patterns. For example, company landlords were more likely to own commercial property and have earned a gross annual rental income of £20,000 or more in the last tax year. Individual landlords by contrast tended to have earned less gross annual rental income. For example, 83% of individual landlords received gross annual rental income from property of less than £50,000 compared to 48% of company landlords.

2. Investment Behaviour

The route to property ownership was varied. The majority of landlords (60%) purchased or bought their property as an investment. However, a substantial proportion (40%) originally purchased the property to live in, or received it through inheritance or as a gift. Regardless of whether landlords purchased the property as an investment or originally purchased the property to live in, or received them through inheritance or as a gift, the long-term security of property (71% and 67% respectively) and the property being a physical asset (69% and 64% respectively) were key reasons for investing or keeping the property. In the qualitative research, many landlords reported that their properties were expected to be profitable over the long term, with an increase in capital over time. For example, many landlords cited the housing market as a safe investment, with expectations of rising house and rent prices leading to greater profit. This was the justification they used for incurring the on-going costs of renting out a property.  

As a result, most landlords intend to keep the same number of properties in the next year (73%). However 24% intended to reduce their number of rental properties within the next year, and this rose to 33% over the next five years. Despite this, over half of landlords did not intend to sell their property over the next 5 years (53%).  

For the most part, landlords reported using property as a supplementary source of income (78%). By contrast around a fifth of landlords (19%) used their property as their main source of income.

3. Managing tax affairs and the use of agents

Landlords were aware of the basic tax rules for their rental properties but nearly a half (49%) used an accountant to manage their tax affairs related to their rental property. However, a large proportion of landlords managed their taxes themselves (43%). The qualitative interviews indicated that landlords chose to hire accountants because doing their own taxes was time-consuming and they had a limited understanding of the process. This was further complicated by the frequent changes in tax laws. 

Landlords generally found it easy to either file their tax return or prepare their information for their tax third party agents, with 62% of self-filers and 68% of those outsourcing finding it easy to prepare their tax information. The most commonly cited reason for finding this difficult was the complexity and lack of clarity of the rules, with two-fifths (40%). This was followed by their lack of expertise (19%) and the amount of work required (12%).  

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of landlords use a third-party or intermediary, for example an estate agent, letting agent, or property manager to rent out their property.

1. Please note this is multi-code question, respondents could select more than one answer and so does not add to 100%. ↩