The age of incorporation is over, or is it?

You might remember back in 2017, when the mortgage interest relief changes landed and every landlord with more than two properties seemed to be setting up a limited company overnight. The rush was so intense you’d have thought they were handing out free kitchens with every SPV. Then, almost as quickly, the mood shifted. Incorporation had its moment, the thinking went, and we all moved on.

Except we didn’t. Not really.

Fast forward to 2024 and, if you can believe it, more than 61,500 limited companies were set up specifically for buy-to-let. That is not a plateau, it is a record high, 23% above the previous record, pushing the total number of active buy-to-let companies in the UK past 400,000. Around 70 to 75% of all new buy-to-let purchases are now made through a company structure. The “one-off trend” narrative is looking quite outdated.

And it is not the same crowd this time around. The first wave mostly involved experienced landlords with sizeable portfolios, driven primarily by tax efficiency. The second wave is far more varied. First-time investors beginning with an SPV. Day-one SPVs snapping up properties. Expats with limited UK credit but strong investment plans. Holiday-let buyers keen to ringfence short-term lets. This is no longer a neat, homogeneous group.

Tax and regulation are still part of the picture. Section 24 is still active, and the stamp duty surcharge for second homes rose from 3% to 5% as of October 2024. More recently, UK Finance forecasts buy-to-let purchase lending to fall around 7% in 2025 and buy-to-let remortgaging to rise modestly, while overall external remortgaging could jump up to 30% as borrowers come off low fixed rates. Against that backdrop, limited company structures offer a useful blend of protection and flexibility, whether that is preserving personal borrowing capacity, or making portfolio management less of a juggling act.

The trouble is, these cases are not always straightforward. Many new entrants have no landlord track record. Some SPVs have no trading history and income sources may not fit neatly into lender systems. That is where brokers add real value, by knowing which lenders out there will take a wider view.

And brokers who treat incorporation as a solved puzzle are in danger of missing out on a piece of the action.

Our buy-to-let proposition has been shaped with this diversity in mind. We offer a dedicated limited company range that covers standard buy-to-let, holiday-let and expat scenarios. Within that, we accept first-time buyers, first-time landlords and day-one SPVs, so a lack of previous letting history is not an automatic barrier. We also consider applicants with non-standard income or more complex financial circumstances.

Everything is manually underwritten, which means each case is reviewed on its merits. That could mean looking past a thin UK credit file for an expat with a strong overseas track record, or assessing the overall stability and affordability for a borrower with a well-managed debt management plan. The aim is to give brokers more scope to keep viable cases alive rather than see them fall at the first automated hurdle.

Because here is the point: the difference between a deal completing or falling through often comes down to the lender’s ability to look at the whole case. Automated systems will decline applications that do not tick every box. Manual underwriting, in contrast, can accommodate nuance and complexity.

And if anyone still thinks 2024 marked the peak, it is worth noting that the number of buy-to-let companies has quadrupled since 2016, reflecting a fundamental shift in how property is owned in the UK. This is not a flash in the pan, it is structural change.

So perhaps the greater risk lies with landlords who overlook the potential benefits of incorporation, and with brokers who fail to recognise how quickly this market is moving. Those who keep assuming incorporation is old news could find themselves sidelined while others adapt to meet the demands of this second wave. And if the past year has shown us anything, it is that limited company buy-to-let is no longer the preserve of a small elite. It is where the market is going, whether we choose to keep up with it or not.