The Intermediary – September 2026 - Flipbook - Page 5
From the editor. . .
his, many of you will be very
pleased to know, is likely to be
my last rant about my own house
purchase process. At least until
I decide to subject myself to this
madness again – so you’ve got
about a decade of respite, I’d say.
My final note on this subject is a fiing one for
our current issue. Towards the end of the process,
while the lawyers were arguing, the seller
pulled out this doozy: “If your lawyer doesn’t
stop making things complicated, we will simply
pull out and turn this into a buy-to-let instead
of selling.”
We were, dear reader, three days from
completion. The delays were entirely on their
side, they were mired in debt, having bought
their next property before selling this one, and
a fat lump sum was approved and waiting in the
ether from our lender to solve all their problems.
I am aware that this was just an ill-advised
bluff, an aempt to pressure me into telling our
lawyer “no, don’t worry about those unclear
access rights, or the unanswered questions about
undocumented construction work…let’s ignore
all those red flags and hurry this transaction
through, the seller has a golden, easy alternative
they could deploy any second!”
I can hear the chortles from every corner of
this market at the idea that becoming a landlord
is – in this day and age – a nice, easy route when
selling your owner-occupied home is just too
much work.
T
www.theintermediary.co.uk
www.uk.linkedin.com/company/the-intermediary
For the sake of argument, let’s set aside the
complexity of taking a residential mortgage
and, under acute time and financial pressure,
converting that into BTL, with all the hoops to
jump through. Then, there’s the act of becoming
a landlord with what was a long-term owneroccupied property – EPCs, gas safety, EICRs…
geing the property ready to rent, listing it
afresh and finding tenants… figuring out the tax
complications, and of course, the ever-present
spectre of the Renters’ Rights Act (RRA).
The seller just thought they could manipulate
me into leing go of my scruples and security
before making the biggest and scariest purchase
of my life. On the one hand, they probably
shouldn’t get into a high-stakes poker game any
time soon, but more interestingly, it shows a
disconnect between what we know as experts in
this market about the realities of BTL, and the
prevailing view among the person on the street.
No wonder consecutive Governments still
see landlords as a great way to wring out cash
and pull in voters. At best, landlords are lazy
opportunists, taking the easy way out. At worst…
well, we all know the headlines.
For those of us in the know, it’s not all doom
and gloom. This month, you’ll find plenty of
optimism and opportunity, from experts who
do, in fact, understand that BTL is an important,
lucrative element of the UK housing ecosystem,
and not just Easy Street. ●
Jessica Bird
@IntermediaryUK
Contributors
The Team
www.facebook.com/IntermediaryUK
BUY-TO-LET
FOCUS ISSUE
OPINION The buy-to-let
latest from Rely, Redwood
Bank, LendInvest, and more
INTERVIEW Paragon
Bank and Propertymark
reflect on 30 years of BTL
The
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www.theintermediary.co.uk | Issue 44 | September 2026 | £6
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THIRTY AND THRIVING
How three decades of buy-to-let has
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