The Bank of England Just Held at 3.75% — Here's What Smart Landlords Do Next

What the MPC Actually Decided — and What the Vote Split Tells You

On 18 June 2026, the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee held Bank Rate at 3.75% for the fourth meeting in a row. The headline looks boring. The detail is not.

The vote moved to 7-2. Two members — including Chief Economist Huw Pill — voted to raise to 4.0%. At the April meeting it was 8-1. That hawkish drift matters enormously for anyone planning a remortgage in H2 2026. According to [realyield.co.uk](https://www.realyield.co.uk/insights/june-18-mpc-preview-rate-hold-landlords), OIS markets have shifted from pricing cuts to pricing around 50 basis points of further tightening over the next 12 months.

Governor Bailey said in a 29 May speech at the Reykjavik economic conference that borrowing costs would remain at 3.75% "at least during the summer." That is not a soft hint. That is a deliberate signal: no cut before August at the earliest, and possibly not then either.

Inflation has fallen to 2.8% — but the Bank expects it to rise again. Energy prices, still volatile after Middle East disruption, are the wildcard. As [landlordknowledge.co.uk](https://landlordknowledge.co.uk/bank-rate-hold-landlord-borrowing-june-2026/) put it: a geopolitical energy shock is now back in the calculation for anyone refinancing close to deal expiry.

So the question for landlords is not "when will rates fall?" The smarter question is: what can I do right now, while lenders are still competing for business?

Lenders Are Cutting Anyway — and That Gap Won't Stay Open Forever

Here is the part most landlords miss. BTL fixed rates are not priced off Bank Rate. They are priced off SWAP rates, which move on market expectations — and SWAPs have been easing since April's softer CPI print. That is why lenders have been cutting even while the MPC holds firm.

The numbers are real and they are recent. According to Mortgage Introducer (week ending 5 June 2026): Fleet Mortgages cut its 5-year standard buy-to-let fix to 5.14%, its limited company equivalent to the same, and its 5-year HMO product to 5.39%. Foundation Home Loans raised its maximum borrower age from 75 to 80 and cut rates by up to 15 basis points. Principality cut by up to 40 basis points across its BTL range. Landbay cut by up to 0.40% on its 75% LTV 2-year product.

For context: the HomeOwners Alliance reported on 19 June 2026 that the average 5-year fix sits at 5.63%, with the lowest available around 4.48%. That spread — from average to best-buy — is where the opportunity lives.

But here is the trade-off I want to be honest about. Locking into a 5-year fix right now means betting that rates will not fall dramatically in the next two to three years. If the MPC pivots hard and cuts to 2.5% by 2028, you are sitting on a relatively expensive fix. That is a real risk. I still think locking in makes sense for most landlords — because the 7-2 vote split and the energy price wildcard mean the "rates will fall fast" scenario is far from guaranteed, and the cost of being wrong on a variable rate is worse than the cost of being wrong on a fix.

The window where lenders are competing and cutting is not permanent. When SWAP rates move back up — and they will if inflation ticks higher — those product cuts reverse fast.

Section 24 Makes This Worse Than the Headline Rate Suggests

If you hold property in your personal name, the 3.75% hold is not a neutral event. It is actively expensive — and the mechanism is Section 24.

Under ITTOIA 2005 s.272A, landlords holding residential property personally cannot deduct mortgage interest from taxable rental profits. Instead, s.274A gives you a 20% tax credit on finance costs — regardless of whether you pay income tax at 20%, 40%, or 45%. Companies are excluded from this restriction and can deduct interest in full.

As [ukpropertyaccountants.co.uk](https://www.ukpropertyaccountants.co.uk/uk-interest-rate-held-at-3-75-what-it-costs-leveraged-landlords/) explained clearly: for a higher-rate landlord paying £15,000 in annual mortgage interest, the effective relief is £3,000 (20% credit) rather than the £6,000 a 40% deduction would previously have produced. That £3,000 gap is a real, recurring cash cost — every year rates stay elevated.

This is the reason I think landlords holding personally need to be especially aggressive about reviewing their mortgage position now, not waiting. The true cost of your borrowing is higher than the rate on your statement. And if you have equity sitting in an existing BTL or HMO portfolio, that equity is working against you while it stays trapped — it is not earning a return, and it is not reducing your loan-to-value to access better product tiers.

I am not your accountant and you should absolutely speak to a qualified tax adviser about your specific position. But the structural reality of Section 24 is well-documented and it changes the calculus on when to act.

The Equity Trap: Why Freeing Capital From an Existing Portfolio Is the Move Right Now

Most of the landlord commentary I have read this week focuses on remortgaging the deal that is expiring. That is the obvious move. The less obvious — and often more valuable — move is releasing equity from a portfolio that has grown in value but where the capital is sitting idle.

Property values across many UK markets have appreciated meaningfully over the past five to seven years. If you bought an HMO in 2019 at £250,000 and it is now worth £380,000, you may have £80,000 or more in accessible equity sitting there doing nothing — depending on your original LTV and current product. That capital could fund a deposit on another HMO, cover a refurbishment that lifts yield, or simply improve your cash position at a time when operating costs are elevated.

Freeing equity from an existing portfolio is genuinely difficult. I say that not as a caveat but as a fact. Lenders assess portfolio landlords differently from single-property owners. The stress-testing rules — particularly the PRA's ICR stress rate of 5.5% applied across the portfolio — mean that many landlords who think they can extract equity find out at application stage that the numbers do not work on a standard residential or BTL product. HMO properties add another layer of complexity: specialist lenders, licensing requirements, and room-by-room income assessments.

This is exactly where a broker who specialises in portfolio BTL and HMO finance earns their fee. Not a high-street mortgage adviser who does three BTL cases a year. Someone who knows which lenders will accept a 4-property limited company portfolio with a mix of HMO and standard BTL, and what the underwriting criteria actually look like in practice.

ZARSK's regulated finance partners work specifically in this space. If you have equity in an existing portfolio — BTL or HMO — and you want to understand what is genuinely accessible right now, that is the conversation worth having. You can start it at [zarsk.co.uk/finance-property](https://www.zarsk.co.uk/finance-property).

What to Actually Do in the Next 30 Days

Concrete steps, not platitudes.

First: if your current fix expires within six months, start the remortgage process now. Many lenders allow you to secure a product up to six months before expiry. If rates improve before completion, you can re-review. If they rise — and the 7-2 vote split suggests that risk is real — you are protected. [moneystreetnews.com](https://moneystreetnews.com/buy-to-let/what-landlords-need-to-know-about-the-base-rate-decision/) made this point well: rate reductions are what landlords have been waiting for, and those who were holding off can now move.

Second: map your portfolio equity. Pull your current valuations, your outstanding balances, and your current LTV across every property. If any asset is sitting at 60% LTV or below and you have not reviewed it in 18 months, there is almost certainly a better product available and potentially accessible equity you have not quantified.

Third: if you hold property personally and are a higher-rate taxpayer, get a qualified accountant to model the after-tax cost of your current borrowing under Section 24. The number may surprise you and change your view on whether restructuring into a limited company makes sense — a complex decision with real costs and benefits that requires proper professional advice.

Fourth: if you are looking to grow the portfolio, this is a reasonable moment to be sourcing deals. HMOs in particular are difficult to find — the market is fragmented, listings are scattered, and many of the best opportunities never hit the major portals. At ZARSK we maintain what I believe is the largest HMO database in the UK, constantly updated, and it exists precisely because finding HMOs through conventional channels is genuinely hard. Worth exploring at [zarsk.co.uk](https://zarsk.co.uk/).

The next MPC decision is 30 July 2026. Between now and then, lenders will continue to reprice — in both directions — as SWAP rates respond to incoming data. Do not wait for the July decision to start moving. By the time the MPC speaks again, the best products available today may already be gone.

The landlords who win in a sideways rate environment are not the ones who predicted the cycle correctly. They are the ones who stopped waiting for the perfect moment and started optimising the position they already have. A 7-2 vote split at the MPC, energy prices still volatile, and two members already pushing for 4% — this is not the setup for a patient strategy. The equity in your portfolio is either working for you or it is not. Right now, for a lot of landlords, it is not. That is the thing worth fixing.