Some good news at last for landlords?

It doesn’t happen often these days, says Merryn Somerset Webb. But there might be something in the next Budget that MoneyWeek readers will like.

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Hammond: Budget may get landlords' greed genes going
(Image credit: 2017 Getty Images)

It doesn't happen often these days. But there might be something in the next Budget (on 29 October) that MoneyWeek readers will like. Rumour has it that chancellor Philip Hammond will introduce a scheme whereby landlords who sell up to tenants who have been with them for more than three years, get a capital gains tax (CGT) break. The details are unclear, but the general idea is that no CGT ends up with the Treasury, with the benefit being shared 50/50 between the tenant and the owner. The owner gets 50% relief and the tenant gets the other 50% that would have been paid in CGT to put towards their deposit or mortgage or something like that at least.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.