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Buying a Holiday Let Business in the UK: What to Check on Bookings, Platforms and the Property

By Provenance Diligence team · .

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This post is for a buyer of a holiday let business in England, Wales or Scotland who has seen a listing or an information pack and wants to know what to ask for before paying. It follows the order in which the questions arise: what is being sold, who owns what, what the tax bill looks like and how to prove the bookings.

Contents

  1. What a holiday let business sale transfers
  2. Company register and title register checks
  3. Tax and price: the regime that ended, stamp duty, VAT
  4. Bookings and platform dependence: proving the revenue

A sample report shows how the findings on a business purchase are laid out, document by document: open the sample report.

1. What a holiday let business sale transfers

Short answer: A holiday let business sale hands you a booking record and a building. Each can fail on its own, so each gets its own check, in the order this post follows.

The price of a holiday let business rests on three things. The first is the nights that guests booked in the past. The second is a property that can lawfully take guests. The third is the licences, registrations and tax classifications attached to that property. A strong booking record on a property that cannot lawfully take guests is worth less than its revenue suggests. A lawful property with a booking record you cannot trace to bank statements is a claim, not an asset.

The legal form of the sale decides which documents you read first. If the seller is a company and you buy its shares, you take the company with its history, and the company register is the first stop (see the register checks). If you buy the assets, you take the building, the goodwill and the listings, and the title register is the first stop. The tax result differs between the two routes, as the tax section shows.

Some context helps you size the risk. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) counted about 2.86 million active UK businesses in 2024, against 2.87 million in 2023 (ONS, Business Demography 2024). ONS reports the nearest sector group as accommodation and food services, which also holds hotels and food businesses. Read it as a backdrop for the trade, not a count of holiday lets.

That group had 203,000 active businesses in 2024. It recorded 30,000 births, a rate of 14.9 percent, and 26,000 deaths, a rate of 12.9 percent. Across all UK businesses the rates were 11.1 percent births and 9.8 percent deaths (ONS, Business Demography 2024). A death rate of 12.9 percent is roughly one business in eight ending in a year. A seller leaving the trade is therefore ordinary, and a buyer should weigh a three-year record above one good season.

A second figure shows how often the tax line moves. The Valuation Office Agency (VOA), the government body that values property for rating, records that between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2025, 25,440 deleted rating-list properties were self-catering holiday homes. That is 24 percent of all deletions, and it followed the 2022 England order on the domestic property definition (VOA, non-domestic rating stock 2025).

About one deletion in four therefore involved a holiday home. A property can leave the business rates list for council tax when its let days fall short, so a home sold as a business may already sit on the wrong side of the line.

Start the file with one request. Ask the seller for a schedule of units that gives, for each unit, its address, legal owner, licence or register holder and platform listing, current at the offer date. A mismatch between those four columns is an early sign of a problem and shows you where to look.

Two limits shape every later step. Turnover is not profit, so a revenue figure alone prices nothing. And an information pack describes the business the seller wants to sell, so each claim in it needs a document behind it. The sections below name that document for each claim.

2. Company register and title register checks

Short answer: Two public registers show who owns what. Companies House shows a company's officers, charges and insolvency record for free. HM Land Registry shows the owner, any mortgage and covenants on each title for a small fee. Read both before the offer.

Companies House lets anyone read some details about a company for free. They include the registered address, incorporation date, current and former officers, scanned document images, mortgage charge data, previous names and insolvency information (GOV.UK, get information about a company). A buyer of shares reads all of it. A buyer of assets reads the seller's entry to confirm who the seller is.

The charges data shows mortgages and other charges registered against a company, and a buyer of a limited company can read it before purchase (GOV.UK, same page). A charge is a security interest, usually a lender's claim over the company's assets. A charge that is still registered means a lender has a claim that the sale price must clear.

Insolvency information and previous company names are also free to read (GOV.UK, same page). A company that traded under another name may have booked guests and earned reviews under that name. The buyer matches the previous names to the listing names, so that a trading name on a platform can be traced to the entity that owns the business.

A company's officer list shows who sits behind the host. Compare it to the names on the bank mandate.

HM Land Registry sets out what a property search returns. The property summary is free and shows the address, the property description, the tenure type and whether restrictive covenants or easements exist (GOV.UK, search for property information). Tenure means freehold or leasehold, and it decides whether a ground rent or a landlord's consent is in play.

The title register costs £7. It shows the title number, the owner, the last sale price, any mortgage, and restrictive covenants and easements (GOV.UK, same page). The title plan costs £7 and shows the property's location and general boundaries. Official copies cost £11 per document, are posted and not downloaded, and are the proof of ownership used for example in court.

Searching does not require owning the property. A buyer must sign in and pay by debit or credit card to download documents (GOV.UK, same page). A buyer who wants a record of the search keeps the downloaded register and plan with the date, because a register can change between offer and exchange.

Restrictive covenants and easements deserve a close look on a holiday let. A covenant may limit use to a single private dwelling, or prohibit trade from the land. An easement may give a neighbour a right of way across the cottage drive. Either one can change the guest experience or the lawful use, so the buyer reads each entry against the use planned.

The mortgage entry matters for completion. A mortgage on the title means the seller's lender must release its charge when the price is paid. If the seller sells the business but keeps the land, the register shows the landlord instead. The buyer then asks which agreement gives the business the right to let the units.

Illustrative figures. A business holds three titles: two cottages and a barn. For each title the buyer downloads the register and the plan. One title needs official copies for the file. Check: 3 × (£7 + £7) = £42, plus £11 for one set of official copies, gives £53. The cost is small beside any price, and one unread covenant can change the use.

The owner on the register should match the entity that sells. If the seller is a company but the title stands in a director's own name, the business uses land it does not own. The buyer then needs a lease or a licence from the director, and the terms of that paper shape what the buyer actually acquires.

Date each check. A register read at the offer date can differ from one read at completion, because a charge may be added or removed in between. The buyer reads each register again close to completion and compares it to the first copy. A difference is a question for the seller's solicitor.

Ask the seller for the lender's redemption statement for each mortgage on the titles, with the daily interest figure and the date it is valid to. The statement shows what is owed and what must be paid off at completion. Compare it with the charge on the register and with the price.

3. Tax and price: the regime that ended, stamp duty, VAT

Short answer: The furnished holiday lettings regime ended in April 2025, so the tax treatment a seller enjoyed may not continue for the buyer. Stamp duty depends on whether the purchase is residential, mixed or non-residential. VAT starts above £90,000 of taxable turnover.

The Government states that the furnished holiday lettings (FHL) tax regime is abolished from April 2025. It describes this as removing the tax advantages that landlords of short-term holiday lets had over other landlords (GOV.UK, FHL tax regime abolition, published 29 July 2024 and last updated 7 November 2024).

The page gives the headline and the dates. A seller's profit figures from before April 2025 may rest on tax treatment that no longer applies, so the buyer models the post-abolition position and does not take the seller's historic after-tax profit as a guide. The buyer's accountant sets out the detail for the buyer's own structure.

Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is the tax a buyer pays on a purchase of land or buildings in England. The higher rates for additional dwellings apply when you buy a residential property, or part of one, for £40,000 or more (GOV.UK, SDLT buying an additional residential property). A buyer who already owns a home usually pays the higher rates on a holiday cottage.

GOV.UK lists the standard residential bands. Nothing is due on the first £125,000. The rate is 2 percent on the portion from £125,001 to £250,000 and 5 percent on £250,001 to £925,000. It is 10 percent on £925,001 to £1.5 million and 12 percent above £1.5 million (GOV.UK, SDLT residential property rates).

GOV.UK adds that you usually pay 5 percent on top of the standard residential rates if you own another residential property (GOV.UK, same page). A 2 percent surcharge also applies to residential property in England and Northern Ireland bought by non-UK residents on or after 1 April 2021, on top of all other residential rates (GOV.UK, additional dwellings page).

Illustrative figures. A cottage is bought for £400,000 by an existing home owner who is a UK resident. Standard rates: £0 on the first £125,000, then 2 percent of £125,000 is £2,500, then 5 percent of £150,000 (the slice from £250,000 to £400,000) is £7,500. Check: £2,500 + £7,500 = £10,000. The higher rates add 5 percent of £400,000, which is £20,000, so the total is £30,000.

The non-residential route gives a different figure. GOV.UK lists non-residential and mixed-use rates on a freehold purchase as nothing up to £150,000, 2 percent on the portion from £150,001 to £250,000 and 5 percent above £250,000 (GOV.UK, SDLT non-residential and mixed rates). A mixed property has both residential and non-residential elements, such as a flat connected to a shop.

A property that mixes residential and non-residential use, such as a shop with a flat above it, is excluded from the higher rates for additional dwellings (GOV.UK, additional dwellings page). Whether a holiday let counts as residential, mixed or non-residential is a question of fact and law for each unit, and the answer changes the bill by thousands of pounds.

Illustrative figures. The same £400,000 on the non-residential table: £0 on the first £150,000, then 2 percent of £100,000 is £2,000, then 5 percent of £150,000 is £7,500. Check: £2,000 + £7,500 = £9,500. Against £30,000 on the residential route with higher rates, the difference is £30,000 − £9,500 = £20,500. For a non-UK resident on the residential route, the 2 percent surcharge adds £8,000.

Ask your solicitor which SDLT table applies to this purchase, residential, mixed or non-residential, and what facts about each unit support that answer. That is the one legal question this section raises, and the figure above shows why: the gap between tables can reach five figures on a single cottage.

VAT is the next gate. You must register for VAT when your total taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000 (GOV.UK, VAT registration, when to register). A holiday let business near that figure may be on the edge of registration, and a buyer of a business with £85,000 of turnover and growth plans reads the line with care.

Illustrative figures. A business had taxable turnover of £86,000 in the last 12 months and adds a sixth cottage that lifts the next 12 months to £104,000. Check: £104,000 − £90,000 = £14,000 above the threshold. The buyer plans registration and prices the effect on guest rates, because the threshold is on turnover and not on profit.

4. Bookings and platform dependence: proving the revenue

Short answer: Revenue is proven when the booking export, the payout reports and the bank statements agree. Concentration on one channel is a risk the buyer measures from the payout reports. Ask for 24 months of bank statements and each channel's payout reports.

A booking export is a list of what guests booked. A payout report is a list of what each channel paid out. A bank statement shows what reached the account. Three documents describing the same revenue should reconcile, and the gap between them is where a buyer looks. A seller who offers one document and not the others leaves the buyer with a claim and not a record.

Start from the booking export and take the gross booking value for 12 months. Subtract cancelled bookings and refunds. Subtract channel commission and payment charges. The result should be close to what the bank received. A difference needs an explanation, and a plausible one has a document behind it.

Illustrative figures. The export shows gross bookings of £142,000 for 12 months. Cancellations and refunds were £4,200, and channel commission and payment charges were £16,900. The bank statements show receipts of £118,700 from those channels. Check: £142,000 − £4,200 − £16,900 = £120,900 expected, and £120,900 − £118,700 = £2,200 unexplained.

An unexplained £2,200 is 1.8 percent of the expected receipts (£2,200 ÷ £120,900). It may be timing, with a stay paid in the next period. It may be cash taken on site, or a refund the export missed. The buyer asks for the item list behind the gap and checks it against the following period's receipts.

Timing needs a rule. A stay that begins in December and ends in January is revenue in one period for the booking export and may be a receipt in another for the bank. The buyer fixes one rule, such as booking by check-out date, and applies it to all three documents. A mixed rule creates a gap that does not exist.

Channel concentration comes from the payout reports. A business may earn through its own site, through one large listing platform and through a second one. The share of revenue by channel shows how much depends on a single account. A listing that is removed or suspended ends the revenue that rested on it.

Illustrative figures. Of £142,000 gross bookings, the largest platform brought £88,500, a second platform £31,200 and the seller's own site £22,300. Check: £88,500 + £31,200 + £22,300 = £142,000. Shares: £88,500 ÷ £142,000 = 62.3 percent, £31,200 ÷ £142,000 = 22.0 percent, and £22,300 ÷ £142,000 = 15.7 percent. Three in five pounds depend on one account.

The buyer also asks who holds each account. An account in the name of the seller personally, and not the company that sells, is an account the buyer may need to move or recreate.

Repeat guests and direct bookings are the least fragile part of a booking book. A direct booking comes from the business's own site or contact list, and it does not rest on a third party's ranking. The booking export should mark the channel of each booking, so that the buyer can count direct repeat stays across the two 12-month periods.

Forward bookings are the next check. A buyer takes over bookings for stays after completion, together with the deposits guests have paid. The seller received that money, but the buyer carries the duty to host. The deposit ledger shows how much cash the buyer must honour and whether the price should be adjusted for it.

Illustrative figures. At completion there are 38 forward bookings with deposits totalling £17,100. The average booking value is £1,350. Check: 38 × £1,350 = £51,300 total booking value, and £51,300 − £17,100 = £34,200 still to be collected from guests. The £17,100 was paid to the seller, so it comes off the price or moves in the completion statement.

Seasonality affects what the forward book proves. A completion in October shows autumn and winter bookings, which are fewer. A completion in March shows spring bookings, which are many. The buyer compares the forward book at the completion date with the book 12 months earlier at the same date, so that the comparison is like for like.

A management agent adds a layer. If a letting agent runs the bookings, the agent's contract decides who owns the guest data, the listings and the calendar, and how a change of owner is handled. The buyer reads the notice period and any fee on termination, since they set the cost of changing the arrangement.

Ask the seller for 24 months of bank statements for every account that receives booking income, the payout report from each channel for the same months, the deposit ledger at the offer date and, if an agent is used, the management agreement with its termination terms. These show whether the three records agree and whether the business can be moved to a new owner.

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Sources