Jointly Owned Property Under Making Tax Digital: Who Reports What

Each Owner Is Tested on Their Own Share

There is no joint test and no joint return. GOV.UK says "Your share of the property income will count towards your qualifying income." Its example is a property owned with a sibling that brings in £50,000 with equal shares and no other business income: "In this example, your qualifying income would be £25,000."

Qualifying income is the figure before expenses, and your share of the rent is added to anything else you have from self-employment or other property. So two owners of the same house can fall on different sides of the line.

Take two owners with £15,000 of rent each in the 2025 to 2026 tax year. One also has a business that took £20,000, so their qualifying income is £35,000 and they must use Making Tax Digital from 6 April 2027. The other has nothing else, is at £15,000, and is under every threshold announced so far. The first sends quarterly updates; the second carries on with an ordinary Self Assessment return.

One detail for owners who are only ever told a net figure. GOV.UK says "If you jointly own a property and only receive notice of your share of the income after expenses have been deducted, then we'll assess that figure for your qualifying income." The MTD checker takes your share and tells you which stage you fall into.

What Your Share Is

Making Tax Digital does not change how the rent is divided for tax. The rules are the ones that already apply to your tax return.

For a married couple or civil partners, GOV.UK says "Property jointly owned by married couples and civil partners who live together will usually be taxed in equal shares." If you own it unequally and are entitled to the income unequally, "the income can be taxed on that basis", and "You both need to declare beneficial interests in joint property and income." That declaration is HMRC's Form 17, sent with evidence that the shares are unequal.

For anyone else, GOV.UK says "your share of the rental profits or losses will usually be based on the share of the property you own, unless you agree a different allocation."

Whatever the split, it applies to the expenses as well as the rent. If you are not sure what your share is, settle that before you start keeping records, because every figure you record depends on it.

Your Records Cover Your Share Only

GOV.UK says "You only need to create digital records that relate to your share of income and expenses from your jointly let properties." If the rent is £1,200 a month and you own half, your record is £600.

You keep them on your own. GOV.UK says "If you are a landlord that jointly lets a property, you do not need to link your digital records to the records of the other landlord." Each owner can use different software, and an owner who is not in Making Tax Digital keeps records the way they always have.

A jointly owned property is not a separate business. GOV.UK says "Your share of any jointly let properties also form part of your UK business", so your share goes into the same UK property figures as any property you own alone, and into the same quarterly update.

If a letting agent pays you a figure with costs already taken off, record both sides. GOV.UK's steps are to "Ask what the full amount of income was before expenses were deducted", then "Create a digital record for the full amount of income" and "Create a digital record for your expenses".

Simpler Records for Joint Owners

GOV.UK lets a joint owner simplify in two ways: "creating less detailed digital records for the income and expenses from your jointly let properties", or "not including expenses relating to jointly let properties in your quarterly updates", or both.

Less detailed records means you may "create a single digital record for each category of property (covering the income you receive in an update period)" and "create a single digital record for each category of property expense you incur in a tax year". GOV.UK's example is a landlord who could "create 3 digital records, showing £1,000 of rent they received each month" or "just create one digital record for the quarter, showing £3,000 of rent received".

This is for the jointly let property. Records for a property you own alone are kept in the normal detail.

Sending the Rent Only in Your Quarterly Updates

The second simplification is the one most joint owners want. GOV.UK says "For jointly let properties, in your quarterly updates you can choose to include either: property income and expenses" or "property income only".

It exists because one owner often does not know the costs until the other, or the agent, sends a statement after the year ends. If you take it, GOV.UK says "you do not need to create digital records for those expenses every quarter."

The expenses still have to reach HMRC before the tax return. GOV.UK says "If you choose not to include your expenses for jointly let properties, you must report them after the end of the tax year. You do this by resending your fourth quarterly update before you submit your tax return using your software." Its page on digital records gives a second route: "adjust the category total in your software and update your digital records".

Two limits. It covers the jointly let property only: GOV.UK says "If you also solely own other properties, you need to include both property income and expenses for those properties in your quarterly updates." And until the expenses are in, the tax estimate HMRC shows you is too high, because it is worked out on rent with nothing set against it.

Foreign Property You Own Jointly

The same share rule applies abroad. GOV.UK asks for digital records "for each individual foreign property you receive income from" and "relating to your share of income and expenses if your foreign property is jointly let". All of your foreign properties, shares included, are one foreign property business with its own quarterly update. See MTD for foreign property.

How to Do It in FileThat

This part is FileThat, not GOV.UK.

FileThat does not split figures between owners. There is no ownership percentage to set, so you enter your own share of each amount: half the rent, half the repair bill, or whatever your share is. Your co-owner does the same in their own software, or on their own return.

Give the property a nickname in Digital Records so its records stay apart from any property you own alone. The nickname is for you and is never sent to HMRC, which receives one combined figure for your UK property business. The UK property page shows how the records map to HMRC's categories.

To send the rent only, record the rent through the year and leave the joint property's expenses out. Each quarterly update is built from the records you have, so it carries the rent alone. Keep recording the expenses of any property you own alone as they happen.

After 5 April, add your share of the joint property's expenses as records, each dated when it was paid, inside the tax year. Then open Your Filing Deadlines and choose Amend Return on the fourth update. FileThat starts from the figures HMRC already holds and adds the records not yet filed, so the rent is not counted twice and the expenses go on top. Do this before you make your adjustments and submit the tax return. The guide to correcting a quarterly update covers Amend Return in more detail.

You are not obliged to wait. If you know your share of a cost during the year, record it and it goes with the next update.

What It Costs in FileThat

One credit covers one new quarterly update, or one VAT return that is not a NIL return. Nothing else uses a credit. All of your UK lets, joint or not, are one property business, so a quarterly update takes one credit however many properties are in it.

Sending the fourth update again to add the joint property's expenses is an amendment, not a new update, and takes no credit. Each owner has their own FileThat account and their own credits, because each sends their own updates. The pricing page has the price of a credit.