Let Property Campaign Accountant

Come forward before HMRC writes to you. The penalty range for an unprompted disclosure starts at nothing, and it closes the day their letter lands on your mat.

That is the whole decision, and most landlords who find this page are still on the wrong side of it. You never told HMRC. There are years of rent nobody declared, on a flat you could not sell, or a house you inherited, or the place you moved out of and let rather than lose. You thought it was too small to matter. You did not think of yourself as a landlord. You put off dealing with it, and interest has been running the whole time. Then a letter arrived, or a headline did, and now the brown envelope is on the kitchen table and it has been there four days.

Total Books is a Let Property Campaign accountant for landlords in exactly that position, working from offices in Cardiff, Newport and Bristol and across the UK. We rebuild the years from your bank statements, rent book and tenancy agreements, calculate the tax properly, word the disclosure so the reductions you have earned are on the table, and deal with HMRC so you do not have to.

Total Books is a regulated, advisory led practice, not a cheap filing service, and on this work that distinction matters: you talk to a person, not a chatbot, and the person you talk to is the one doing the work.

What is the Let Property Campaign?

The Let Property Campaign is HMRC's disclosure route for individual landlords who have undeclared income from residential letting. You will see it called an amnesty, and although HMRC does not use that word, the reason people reach for it is fair enough: come forward yourself and the penalty starts at the bottom of the range instead of the top.

If you make a profit from renting out residential property, you have to tell HMRC. Plenty of landlords have not, and usually not on purpose. You inherited a house and let it out. You moved in with a partner and kept the old flat on. You did not realise a spare room over the allowance counted at all. The campaign exists for exactly those situations, and it is designed to be used rather than feared.

It is not a write-off. You pay the tax, you pay interest, and you pay a penalty at a percentage you propose and justify. What the campaign gives you is the chance to set that percentage yourself, from the bottom of the range, instead of having it set for you at the top.

Is the Let Property Campaign still running? Yes. It opened in 2013, HMRC has never published a closing date, and the campaign is still running today. HMRC's own Let Property Campaign guidance has been updated as recently as April 2026, which is not what a facility being wound down looks like. HMRC has closed campaigns at short notice before, so treat the position as available rather than permanent.

Who does the Let Property Campaign benefit?

It benefits any individual landlord who has not paid enough tax on property income, and it covers more letting situations than most landlords expect. If you have previously missed tax on rent, this is the least stressful route to putting it right.

• Residential property landlords
• Holiday lets and Airbnb hosts
• Spare room rentals above the tax free threshold
• UK landlords living abroad
• Guaranteed rent paid through a letting agent

Total Books, helping you declare rental income

Undeclared rental income is fixable, and it is more routine than it feels from where you are sitting. Landlords come to Total Books at four points, and the right next step is different at each one.

• A nudge letter has arrived from HMRC about rental income. Do not ignore it. The reply date is real and the first response shapes everything after it
• You know rent was not fully declared. You are still unprompted, which is the cheaper position, and it lasts only until HMRC writes
• Records are missing or incomplete. No rent book, gaps in the tenancy agreements, a managing agent who has moved on. Reasonable estimates are accepted, provided you can show how you built them
• You cannot pay everything at once. Time to Pay is arranged before the disclosure goes in, not after

Every one of those is a Let Property Campaign disclosure. What changes is the order of the work and how much time you have.

Should you come forward, or wait and see if HMRC contacts you?

Come forward. An unprompted disclosure, made before HMRC contacts you about it, carries a lower penalty range than a prompted one in every behaviour band, and in the careless band the unprompted minimum is nothing at all.

Here is what that difference is worth. These are the statutory ranges HMRC works within, set by Schedule 24 Finance Act 2007 for an inaccurate return and Schedule 41 Finance Act 2008 for failing to tell HMRC you had income at all.

The moment a nudge letter about rental income arrives, the left hand column is gone. Not reduced. Gone. That is the single most expensive thing about waiting, and it is why Total Books tells landlords who are still undecided to make the decision this week rather than next quarter.

A Let Property Campaign prompted disclosure is not a different facility, it is the same one at a worse price. Read the longer comparison in our guide to prompted and voluntary disclosure for landlords.

Where do you stand right now?

Most landlords contact Total Books when uncertainty turns into pressure. Sometimes that starts with a quiet realisation, sometimes with a letter. The right next step depends entirely on which of those it is, so answer six questions and the page will tell you.

Can you use it?

The campaign is for individuals with income from residential property. That covers most of the people who contact us: one buy to let, an inherited house, a former home let after a move, a small portfolio, a room let beyond the Rent a Room threshold, and Airbnb or short let income.

It does not cover everything, and using the wrong facility costs you the 90 days you thought you had.

• A company, a trust or a partnership goes through the Digital Disclosure Service instead
• Commercial property goes through the Digital Disclosure Service
• Anything with an offshore element, including a property abroad or income paid to an overseas account, belongs in the Worldwide Disclosure Facility
• Deliberate behaviour you want protection against prosecution for belongs in Code of Practice 9, and nowhere else

Total Books works out which one applies before anything is notified. If it is not the campaign, we say so on the first call, even when that means the work goes elsewhere. Our Digital Disclosure Service page covers the wider route, and the full comparison sits in which HMRC disclosure route applies to you.

Four years, six or twenty. Which shelf you are reaching back to is decided by behaviour, not by the letting history.

How far back can HMRC go under the Let Property Campaign?

Four, six or twenty years, and which one applies is decided by your behaviour, not by how long the property has been let. That is the answer to how many years you have to disclose, and it is the question landlords get wrong most often.

In our casework, landlords who assume four years are usually in the six year band, because "I did not know I had to" reads as careless rather than reasonable care once rent has been landing in a current account for years. Getting this wrong understates the disclosure, and an understated disclosure is the one HMRC comes back on.

If the property has been let for longer than the window, you disclose the years inside the window. You do not have to go back to the beginning of time.

What is the Let Property Campaign penalty, and how is it worked out?

The Let Property Campaign penalty is a percentage of the tax, taken from the ranges above and reduced by how much you help HMRC. There are three reductions and they are worth up to the full range between the minimum and the maximum.

• Telling, worth up to 30 per cent of the reduction. Admitting it fully, and early
• Helping, worth up to 40 per cent. Doing the work rather than leaving HMRC to do it
• Giving access, worth up to 30 per cent. Producing records when asked

This is the part that is in your control, and it is most of what an adviser is for. A disclosure pack that arrives complete, with a year by year schedule, the behaviour honestly categorised and the reasoning written down, earns reductions that a bare set of numbers does not. It is the difference Total Books is paid to make.

One thing to be clear about. The reductions apply to the penalty, never to the tax and never to the interest. Anyone telling you a disclosure will reduce the tax you owe is describing something else.

Interest is usually the bigger number

Late payment interest has run at the Bank of England base rate plus four percentage points since 6 April 2025, up from base plus 2.5. On rent from eight or ten years ago, compounding quietly the whole time, that adds up to more than the penalty in most of the disclosures we run. Reporting by AccountingWEB on HMRC's campaign figures put interest ahead of penalties by more than twelve to one across 2025/26.

It is also the one part nobody can negotiate. That is the real argument for starting now rather than in six months, and Total Books would rather say it plainly than let you find out later. Our note on HMRC interest and penalty changes sets out the current rates.

How does HMRC find out about undeclared rental income?

From data it already holds, and increasingly from data it is sent automatically. HMRC does not need a tip off to open a landlord case.

Two sources are confirmed on GOV.UK. Digital platforms have reported seller and host income since the first returns landed on 31 January 2025, which covers short let and holiday let platforms. And HMRC's own policy paper on third party data confirms it already receives information about rents and payments relating to land and property.

Beyond that, Land Registry feeds, tenancy deposit scheme data, letting agent returns and HMRC's Connect system are widely reported as sources. HMRC has not confirmed them, so treat them as trade press rather than fact.

The practical point does not depend on which list is right. Undeclared rent surfaces eventually, and it usually surfaces at the worst possible moment: a sale, a remortgage, a probate application, or a Making Tax Digital sign up that makes the filing history visible. Coming forward first is the only version of this you control.

Before the clock starts

The letter is the moment the cheaper penalty range closes. Everything before it is still your choice.

How do you notify HMRC and make the disclosure?

Two stages, in this order, and the order matters.

Stage one, notification. A short form telling HMRC you intend to disclose under the campaign. No figures. No explanation. HMRC acknowledges it and issues your disclosure reference number.

Stage two, the disclosure. From the date on that acknowledgement you have 90 days to submit the full disclosure and make payment, or ask for time to pay. That is the Let Property Campaign deadline that actually binds you, and the 90 day disclosure clock starts at the acknowledgement, not at the notification and not at the day you first worried about it.

Ninety days sounds generous until you are reconstructing 2016 from bank statements and a rent book. In practice the work is front loaded: the records take the first month, the calculations the second, and the wording and the offer the third. The step by step version, with what HMRC expects at each stage, is in our guide to making a Let Property Campaign disclosure.

What if your records are missing?

You disclose anyway, using reasonable estimates, and you show your working.

HMRC accepts estimated figures where records genuinely no longer exist. What it does not accept is a round number with nothing behind it. A defensible estimate is built from what does survive: bank statements showing rent arriving, the tenancy agreements you still have, a letting agent's annual statements, mortgage interest certificates, and the standing charges that barely move year to year.

Total Books has rebuilt disclosures from a single current account and a folder of tenancy agreements, filling the gaps with void periods the tenant history confirms and standing charges that barely move. It takes longer and the estimate has to be conservative, but it is a disclosure HMRC accepts. The detail sits in can you submit a disclosure with missing records.

What if you cannot pay it all at once?

You call the HMRC helpline about payment before you submit the disclosure, not after.

This is the ordering most pages get wrong and it costs people money. The disclosure asks you to pay in full at the point you make the offer. If you know you cannot, you agree a Time to Pay arrangement first, then submit the disclosure referencing it. Doing it the other way round means submitting an offer you cannot honour, which is a worse position than asking in advance.

Time to Pay is not a favour and it is not a black mark. It is a normal arrangement, and HMRC agrees them routinely where the numbers and the household budget support the instalments.

Year by year

Let Property Campaign

Ninety days is enough time, if the first thirty are spent on records

Total Books rebuilds each year from what survives, then calculates rather than estimates wherever the paperwork allows it.

See the disclosure step by step

What happens after HMRC accepts it?

Total Books submits, and HMRC either accepts the offer or comes back with questions. Acceptance forms a contract settlement: the years are closed, the liability is fixed, and the matter is finished.

Then you go back to ordinary Self Assessment, with your UTR, the return, and nothing hanging over it. If your gross property income takes you over the Making Tax Digital thresholds, that means digital records and quarterly updates from your start date, which the Total Books MTD ITSA service handles alongside the return. Landlords who have been through a disclosure want the following years to be boring, and that is a reasonable thing to want. Our Virtual Finance Office runs them that way, through a secure client portal, wherever in the UK you are.

Can you still be prosecuted?

Yes. The Let Property Campaign gives you no immunity from prosecution, and any page telling you otherwise is wrong.

In practice HMRC prosecutes a very small number of cases and they are at the deliberate and concealed end. But the campaign is a disclosure facility, not a shield, and the only route that carries a contractual assurance against criminal investigation for the conduct disclosed is Code of Practice 9, the Contractual Disclosure Facility.

If that is your situation, say so on the first call. Total Books will route you to the right facility and, where it needs a specialist, tell you that too. Coming to us and being sent somewhere better is a good outcome. Notifying under the wrong facility is not. This is also the point at which we will not help: Total Books checks planning against HMRC Spotlight guidance and does not use aggressive schemes, and a disclosure is not a place to start.

What if the property or the landlord is overseas?

Then the campaign is probably the wrong door. An offshore element pushes the disclosure into the Worldwide Disclosure Facility, where the penalty ranges are higher, territory categories apply, and Failure to Correct can put the standard penalty at 200 per cent of the tax before any reduction.

Non-resident landlords have a second layer: the Non-Resident Landlord Scheme, NRL1 registration, and withholding by the letting agent. And where the same rent has been taxed abroad, relief has to be claimed rather than assumed. Our pages on foreign tax for UK residents and double taxation relief on foreign rental income cover the ground.

Find your situation

Most landlords contact a Let Property Campaign accountant at one of seven points. Find the closest match, because the right next step is different at each one.

1) "I've received a letter from HMRC about rental income"

Reply, and get advice before you do. HMRC already holds data linking you to a let property, so this is a prompted position and the lower penalty band has closed. What is still in play is the reduction for telling, helping and giving access, and the first reply sets the tone for all of it.

2) "I started a Let Property Campaign disclosure, but it isn't finished"

Finish it inside the window, or tell HMRC before the window closes. A stalled disclosure is recoverable. An abandoned one looks like a withdrawn admission, which is the worst position on this page.

3) "I haven't told HMRC yet, but I know I should have"

You are in the best position anyone reading this can be in. Unprompted and careless starts at nil, and that stays true right up until a letter arrives.

4) "I'm not sure I even need to disclose"

Check the figures before you assume either way. The property allowance, the Rent a Room threshold, void periods and genuine allowable expenses mean some landlords owe nothing at all, and a short calculation on the rent book settles it.

5) "My records are incomplete"

Disclose on reasonable estimates, and evidence how you built them from the bank statements and tenancy agreements that survive. Missing paperwork delays a disclosure. It does not prevent one.

6) "I can't afford to pay the tax in one go"

Arrange Time to Pay first, then submit. Doing it in that order is the single most useful piece of Let Property Campaign advice on this page.

7) "I'm worried this could turn into something serious"

Take advice before you notify anything. If the behaviour was deliberate, Code of Practice 9 is the only route carrying an assurance against criminal investigation, and notifying under the campaign instead closes that door.

The first fifteen minutes

One person, start to finish. You will not be handed round a team.

Our Let Property Campaign Disclosure and Mitigation services

Seven stages. Total Books tells you at every point what has been done and what is next, and you deal with one person throughout rather than a queue.

1. Fact find and risk check.Which properties, which years, and whether HMRC has already been in touch. This decides how urgent it is and which facility applies.
2. Build the disclosure pack.Bank statements, letting agent statements, tenancy dates, void periods and property costs, plus anything you already submitted if you started this yourself. Where there is a managing agent, we go to them directly rather than to you.
3. Calculate every year properly.Year by year, not a total. Sometimes the answer is smaller than you feared, and occasionally there is nothing to pay once the finance costs and allowable expenses are in.
4. Penalty mitigation and wording.We categorise the behaviour honestly, propose the reduction the facts support, and write the explanation that justifies it.
5. Submit through HMRC's Digital Disclosure Service.Inside the window, from our HMRC Agent Services Account, with the disclosure reference number and the payment reference number kept straight.
6. Handle the queries.If HMRC comes back, the correspondence comes to us.
7. Arrange the payment plan.Agreed before submission where you need it.

What does a Let Property Campaign accountant cost?

It depends on four things, and we tell you the figure before any work starts, never after.

• How many years are in scope. Four years of one flat is a different job from twelve years of a portfolio
• How many properties, and whether they were held jointly, through a managing agent, or with void periods to account for
• What records survive. Complete bank statements, letting agent statements and mortgage interest certificates are quick. Reconstruction from fragments is not
• Whether HMRC has already written. A prompted case runs to their timetable rather than yours

We quote a fixed fee once we know those four answers, which is what the free 15 minute call establishes. There is no charge for the call and no obligation after it. What we will not do is quote a number on a web page for work we have not scoped, because the honest answer to what a Let Property Campaign accountant costs is that it depends on your years, and anyone publishing a single price is guessing at yours.

One thing worth weighing against the fee. The reductions for telling, helping and giving access are earned by the quality of the disclosure, and they apply to a penalty that can run to the full amount of the tax. On a disclosure of any size, that is usually the larger number.

CARDIFF · NEWPORT · BRISTOL

Ordinary streets, ordinary lettings. This is what the campaign was built for.

Ensure compliance and maximise your rental income with Total Books

Buhir Rafiq leads the work. Total Books is an AAT licensed practice and an HMRC registered tax agent, a Companies House authorised agent and a Xero Certified Advisor, and Buhir has more than thirty years in accounting and seventeen running the firm from offices in Cardiff, Newport and Bristol. You can read more about Buhir Rafiq or work through the client reviews before you call.

The free 15 minute call covers four things: whether the campaign is your route, roughly how many years are in scope, what the realistic penalty band looks like on your facts, and what happens in the first fortnight. You will not be asked for documents on it. Records come later, through the secure client portal, and where a landlord has a portfolio we pull the paperwork together with Dext rather than asking for shoeboxes.

It is also confidential. Talking to an accountant about undeclared rent does not put you on a list and does not oblige you to disclose. People ask us this more than any other question, so we answer it before it is asked.

Looking for a landlord accountant near you?

Total Books works with landlords from three offices and remotely across the UK, so proximity is a convenience rather than a requirement. Let Property Campaign accountants are not thick on the ground outside London, which is why most of our disclosure work arrives from further afield than the office postcodes suggest.

• Landlord accountant in Bristol. Bristol landlords and property tax accountant work, including portfolios held across the West
• Landlord accountant in Cardiff. Cardiff and South Wales landlords, with Welsh rates of income tax applied correctly to rental profit
• Landlord accountant in Newport. Newport and the surrounding valleys

Disclosure work does not need you in a room. Most of it runs on documents and correspondence, and our Virtual Finance Office handles landlords and property tax advisers' clients anywhere in the UK through a secure client portal. Landlords searching for a Let Property Campaign accountant near them are usually looking for someone who will pick up the phone, and that part we can promise wherever you are.

You can also read what landlords say about the work. Our client reviews run to more than four hundred, and the Let Property Campaign reviews sit among them.

Dean W: 12 Years of Undeclared Rental Income Disclosed and HMRC Penalties Cut to 10 Per Cent

Dean came to us with twelve years of rental income that had never been fully declared and overdue Self Assessment returns he could not face. He was worried the penalty would be applied at the top.

We ran the disclosure through the Let Property Campaign, rebuilt the records year by year, prepared and filed the historic returns with clear calculations, and dealt with HMRC directly. The outcome was full compliance and penalties reduced from 100 per cent to 10 per cent, along with a system that keeps the following years straightforward. That was Dean's result on Dean's facts, and it is not a promise about yours.

Read Dean's full case study, or Martha's ten years of unfiled returns.

Ignoring undeclared rental income does not make HMRC go away

HMRC receives rent and payment data on land and property from third parties, and digital platforms have reported seller and host income since the first returns landed on 31 January 2025. Land Registry feeds, deposit scheme data and letting agent returns are widely reported as sources too, though HMRC has not confirmed them.

The practical position is simpler than the speculation. Undeclared rent surfaces eventually, usually at the worst moment: a sale, a remortgage, a probate application, or a Making Tax Digital sign up that makes the history visible. Every month it waits, the interest grows and the unprompted band stays available for one month less.

The rest of the landlord disclosure library

This page is the hub. Each guide below goes deeper on one part of it, and each links back here.

Selling the property, or holding it in a company, changes the picture again. Our capital gains tax service covers the disposal side, and personal tax takes over once the disclosure is settled.

Frequently asked questions about the Let Property Campaign

Short answers first. If yours is not here, it is the kind of question the free 15 minute call exists for.

After settlement

Years closed, liability fixed, and the following January like anyone else’s.

What to have ready, if you want to move quickly

Nothing on this list is needed for the free 15 minute call. It is what Total Books asks for afterwards, and landlords who gather it early shorten the first month of the 90 days considerably.

• bank statements for the account the rent landed in, as far back as they go
• every tenancy agreement you still have, and the tenant dates you remember
• letting agent statements, or the managing agent's name so we can request them
• mortgage interest certificates for each year
• your UTR, if you have ever filed a Self Assessment return
• the nudge letter itself, if one has arrived

Missing several of these is normal and it is not a reason to wait. Total Books rebuilds from whatever survives, and a year by year schedule built on a current account and a rent book is still a disclosure HMRC accepts.

Start the 90 days on your terms

Book the free 15 minute call. Tell us what has been let and roughly for how long, and Total Books will tell you which facility applies, how many years are in scope, and what the first fortnight looks like. Bring the letter if one has arrived. If one has not, that is the better call to be making.

This page explains how the HMRC Let Property Campaign works and is general information, not advice on your own circumstances. Penalty outcomes depend on your facts and on HMRC’s decision. Figures quoted are from GOV.UK, HMRC factsheets CC/FS7a, CC/FS11 and CC/FS17 and the HMRC Compliance Handbook, checked August 2026.