Property & Developers

Property is its own accounting discipline. The same building can be trading stock or investment asset, its sale taxed completely differently depending on intention and evidence; VAT on land and buildings is the most option-riddled corner of the tax; SDLT arrives in reliefs and traps; developments run through CIS; and lenders want project numbers most bookkeeping was never structured to produce.

Acumon acts for property businesses across the cycle — site acquisition through development, letting, refinancing and disposal — with the specialisms each stage needs sitting in one firm: property VAT, SDLT, CIS payroll, and accounts built around projects rather than squeezed into a generic chart.

Structuring Deals and Development Vehicles

Property rewards structure decided before exchange: SPVs per development for risk isolation and clean exit — buyers increasingly purchase the company, not the building — group holding arrangements where portfolios sit alongside developments, joint venture structures with profit shares that work for tax as well as the spreadsheet, and the trader-versus-investor distinction established deliberately with intention documented, because it decides whether profits face income-style or capital treatment and HMRC argues it with hindsight.

VAT on Land and Buildings

Property VAT is where fortunes leak: options to tax exercised or missed with twenty-year consequences, the zero-rating of new dwellings and its documentation, the 5% rates on conversions and renovations that contractors routinely fail to apply, transfers of going concerns on let buildings, and the capital goods scheme adjusting recovery for a decade. Our property VAT specialists — several ex-HMRC — sit on transactions from heads of terms, because VAT designed in costs nothing and VAT retrofitted costs the margin.

CIS, SDLT and the Compliance Stack

Developments run on the Construction Industry Scheme — contractor registration, subcontractor verification, deductions and monthly returns, handled by our CIS payroll team. SDLT parallel-runs every acquisition: multiple dwellings, mixed-use rates, the 3% surcharge's boundaries, group and partnership reliefs — assessed before completion, when planning is still legal rather than wishful. Corporation tax adds its own property layer: ATED for companies holding dwellings, interest limitations at scale, and capital allowances mined properly on commercial builds.

Project Accounts Lenders Believe

Development finance runs on reporting: costs against appraisal by project and phase, WIP and stock valued on defensible bases, drawdown requests evidenced, and profit recognised when the accounting standards say — not when the sales office celebrates. We build project-structured accounts in your cloud platform, produce lender packs that survive monitoring surveyors, and keep the management numbers honest enough to kill a bad scheme early, which is the most profitable thing accounting ever does for a developer.

What You Get With Acumon

• SPV, group and JV structures designed before exchange, not after
• Trader-versus-investor positions established and documented deliberately
• Property VAT: options to tax, zero and reduced rates, TOGC, capital goods scheme
• SDLT assessed on every acquisition — reliefs claimed, surcharges not overpaid
• Full CIS compliance run by the in-house payroll team
• Project-based accounts with WIP, appraisal tracking and lender reporting
• ATED and corporate property compliance for company-held dwellings
• Disposals planned across CGT, corporation tax and the 60-day deadline

Why Acumon for Property & Developers?

• Property VAT and SDLT specialists in-house, several previously with HMRC
• CIS registration, verification and returns run by the CIPP-qualified payroll team
• Handles 60-day property returns and non-resident CGT reporting as core practice
• All 90 of the firm's professionals are based in the UK

Get a Fixed-Fee Quote

Tell us what you need and we'll come back within one business day with a clear scope and a fixed price — no hourly-rate surprises. Call 020 8567 3451 or use the form and we'll be in touch.