MTD for the Lazy Landlord – The Least Hassle Approach
The countdown has begun. On April 6, 2026, the British rental sector faces its biggest administrative shake-up since the introduction of the Right to Rent checks. Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax is no longer a distant threat whispered about in accounting webinars; it is a live, legal reality for any landlord with a gross income exceeding £50,000.
If you’re a landlord with a small portfolio—perhaps those five properties you’ve spent a decade maintaining—the headlines are enough to cause a cold sweat. “Quarterly reporting,” “Digital links,” and “Real-time records” sound like a full-time job. But after weeks of digging through HMRC technical manuals and interviewing tax-tech insiders, I’ve discovered a secret: MTD can be surprisingly “lazy” if you know which corners to cut.
This is your guide to the absolute minimum effort required to stay on the right side of the law.
The Myth of the ‘Extra Tax Return’
First, let’s kill the biggest lie in the sector. You are not filing five tax returns a year.
HMRC’s MTD system requires four “Quarterly Updates” and one “Final Declaration.” Crucially, those four updates are unadjusted. They don’t have to be perfect. They don’t need your accountant to spend three days reconciling pennies. They are essentially a “light-touch” snapshot of money in versus money out.
For the “Lazy Landlord,” the goal isn’t precision; it’s velocity.
The “Two-Figure” Rule (The £90,000 Threshold)
If your total turnover (gross rent before expenses) is under £90,000, you have just hit the administrative jackpot. While the big players have to categorize every expense into buckets like “Repairs,” “Professional Fees,” or “Travel,” you do not.
HMRC allows you to submit just two totals:
- Total Quarterly Income
- Total Quarterly Expenses
In the “Lazy Landlord” workflow, this means you can import your bank feed, tag every rental payment as “Income” and every plumber, electrician, or insurance bill as “Expense,” and hit send. You don’t need to specify which property the expense was for. You don’t even need to split a “General Property” bill into specific sub-categories. You just need to prove you have a digital record of the transaction.
The Mortgage Cheat Code: Interest-Only Defaults
The biggest headache for MTD is the Residential Finance Cost (mortgage interest). Since 2020, you can’t deduct mortgage interest from your profit; instead, you get a 20% tax credit.
Most MTD software forces you to manually calculate the interest vs. capital split every month. For the lazy landlord, that’s a non-starter.
The Shortcut: Since the vast majority of Buy-to-Let (BTL) mortgages are Interest-Only, the “Lazy” approach is to set your software to default to 100% Interest.
- The Workflow: If your mortgage payment is £800, your software tags the full £800 as a “Residential Finance Cost.”
- The Reality: If you have a repayment mortgage, you simply toggle a setting once to input a fixed monthly interest figure.
- The Result: You never have to look at a mortgage statement until the very end of the tax year.
Beating the Clock: The “Early Bird” Submission
One of the most overlooked features of MTD is the 10-day early window.
If you’re planning a holiday in late June, you don’t want to be thinking about your Q1 update (ending July 5th). HMRC allows you to submit your quarterly update up to 10 days before the quarter ends.
If your rents land on the 1st of the month and your bills are paid, you can file your “Quarterly Update” on June 26th and forget about HMRC until October. If a surprise repair bill lands on July 2nd? No problem. The “Lazy Landlord” simply rolls that expense into the next quarter. HMRC allows for these adjustments; accuracy is for the Final Declaration in January, not the quarterly snapshot.
Storage: The “Phone in Pocket” Method
You’ve likely heard you need “massive cloud storage” for your receipts. You don’t. For 5 properties, you will generate roughly 300-500 documents a year. That is less than 1 GB of data.
The Lazy Workflow:
- Don’t use a flatbed scanner.
- Do use a mobile app that converts photos to black-and-white PDFs.
- The Trick: These PDFs are often 90% smaller than a standard photo. You can store 10 years of records on a single, cheap USB stick or the free tier of Google Drive.
The “Soft Landing” Safety Net
HMRC knows this is a big change. That’s why they have introduced the “Soft Landing” year. From April 2026 to April 2027, there are no penalty points for late quarterly updates. You’d normally get 30 days from the quarter’s end to make your MTD submission.
This is your “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Use this year to automate your bank feeds and get your digital records in order without the fear of a £200 fine.
The Final Verdict
MTD isn’t a monster; it’s just a new rhythm. By using the Consolidated Expenses rule, the Interest-Only Default, and Early Filing, you can reduce your annual tax admin from a “January Nightmare” to a series of “10-minute check-ins.”
Stay lazy, but stay compliant. (Always speak to a financial adviser or your accountant for the most up to date information)