The campaign against the imminent changes to mortgage interest tax relief for the buy to let sector estimates that 1.4m landlords are still unaware of the proposals.

The Landlord Referencing website – which backs the so-called Axe The Tenant Tax campaign against the tax change contained in S24 of the Finance (No.2) Act 2015 – says that it has polled 1,000 of its members. 

“Worryingly, 70 per cent of those polled where oblivious to any such tax change at all – meaning that circa. 1.4 million landlords are unaware of the drastic effect it is going to have on their rental income and their tenancies over the next four years” claims the website.

It says that overall some 8.2m people in England alone will be affected, because they let residential property as an individual, or in a partnership or trust. 

The main campaign against the measure – which is phased, with part one coming into effect on April 1 – has the support of ARLA, the NLA and RLA, UKALA and the Scottish Association of Landlords. Last year the campaign lost a bid to trigger a judicial review of the measure, first announced in George Osborne’s post-election Budget of 2015.