Landlords who missed the August and November MTD updates: the clean-up before 7 February

The short answer

If you are a landlord in the first wave of Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (MTD) and you missed the 7 August and 7 November updates, you have not been fined and you will not be fined for them. GOV.UK's penalties page says there are no penalties for missing a quarterly update deadline for the 2026/27 tax year. What you have is a blocked tax return. The same page says you still need to send your quarterly updates before you can submit your tax return, and that return is due by 31 January 2028.

The fix is smaller than two missed quarters suggests. Every update is cumulative, from 6 April to the end of the latest period, so you build one set of records for April to January and the totals due by 7 February 2027 already contain the earlier quarters. The work is in the records, not the submission.

This article is the landlord version of the clean-up. For the general picture of what went wrong in year one, see our post on two MTD deadlines in. Here we cover what a property update contains, what letting agent statements are and are not, how to rebuild the year in one pass, and the joint-ownership option that halves the work for couples.

First, find out whether HMRC has signed you up

HMRC says that from September 2026 it is signing up, in stages, people who need to use the service for 2026/27 and have not done so themselves. GOV.UK adds that "when HMRC signs you up, we use only the information we already hold about you", and that if HMRC has signed you up it tells you what to do next. If you never signed up and never heard anything, you may still have been enrolled. Your accountant can check; if you do not have one, the letters HMRC has sent are the record.

Being signed up by HMRC changes nothing about the work. You still need software or an agent, digital records from 6 April 2026, and the missed updates sent. The only difference from signing yourself up is that you did not choose the moment.

If you are not sure you were ever in scope, the test is gross rent plus gross self-employment income over £50,000 on your 2024/25 return. The MTD scope checker settles it in a minute.

What a landlord's update actually contains

Less than most people fear. GOV.UK says Making Tax Digital for Income Tax "uses the same income and expense categories as Self Assessment", and that "your quarterly updates will include totals for each income and expense category" you used to create your digital records. The page adds that updates "are summaries, not tax returns" and that "HMRC will not receive details of individual receipts or invoices in your quarterly updates".

For a landlord, that means the running year-to-date totals in the headings you already know from the property pages of the return. Rents and other property income sit on one side. Running costs, repairs and maintenance, finance costs, professional fees, cost of services and other expenses sit on the other. Our guide on allowable expenses for landlords covers which costs go where. No tax is calculated in an update. That happens once, in the return.

What HMRC does require is that the totals come from digital records of each item. GOV.UK: "you or your agent will need to create and store digital records of your self-employment and property income and expenses", and "you must also continue keeping records like you normally do for Self Assessment". Those records have to be kept for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline.

Letting agent statements: evidence, not the record

This is where landlords who use a managing agent get stuck. The monthly statement shows rent collected, the agent's fee, any repairs the agent arranged, and the net amount paid to you. It feels like the record. It is not.

GOV.UK's wording on who may keep the records is about your tax agent: "if you have an agent that deals with your record keeping, they can do this on your behalf". Letting agents are not mentioned anywhere in the guidance. The statement is the source document, like an invoice. What goes in your digital records is what it shows: the gross rent, the management fee, each repair, each with a date, an amount and a category.

GOV.UK does give landlords one simplification. You may create a single digital record for each category of property income or expense covering an update period, rather than one per transaction. So a monthly statement can become one rent entry and one fee entry for the month. What does not work is recording only the net payment that landed in your bank, because that understates both your rent and your expenses. Either you enter the statement lines into your software when the statement arrives, or your software reads the statement and does it for you. Our guide to digital records for Making Tax Digital goes through this with examples.

Missed an MTD quarterly update? Rebuild April to January in one pass

Because the update is cumulative, you are not reconstructing three separate quarters. You are building one set of records from 6 April 2026 to 5 January 2027; whether your software then sends one submission or one per missed period is a detail it handles. In order:

1. Connect the bank account the rent lands in to your software and let it pull the transactions since 6 April. That gives you every rent receipt, mortgage payment, insurance premium and tradesperson payment with its date.
2. Add the letting agent statements for the same months, so the gross rent and the agent's deductions are recorded as separate items, not just the net transfer.
3. Categorise everything to the property headings. Rent to income; mortgage interest to finance costs, kept separate from capital repayments, which are not an expense; repairs, insurance, ground rent and service charges to their boxes.
4. Deal with the months that had nothing. A void month (no tenant) still belongs in the records. GOV.UK says an update is required even when there is nothing to report, and your year-to-date totals simply carry forward.
5. Send the update through recognised software, yours or your accountant's. The figures are cumulative, so the totals you send carry everything since 6 April. Our step-by-step on submitting a quarterly update covers the screens.

If you find an error afterwards, GOV.UK says to correct it in your records as soon as possible; the correction flows into your next update. Only the fourth update may need to be resent if you change your records after sending it.

Mistakes that do not need fixing

Three things landlords have been worrying about that cost nothing:

• The totals in your update do not match what you will put on the return. They are not meant to, yet. Updates are year-to-date summaries; the return is where adjustments, allowances and the finance-cost credit are applied.
• You sent an update with a mistake in it. Correct the record; the next cumulative update carries the right figure.
• You missed an update deadline in 2026/27. No penalty point. From 2027/28 each late update earns a point, and four points means £200. The tax return is the exception: a late return earns a point from the start, so 31 January 2028 still matters. Our MTD penalty calculator shows what that looks like if the habit continues.

Joint owners: the option most couples miss

If the property is jointly let, each owner who is in scope reports their own share, and each needs their own digital records. GOV.UK then offers a choice for the updates themselves: "for jointly let properties, in your quarterly updates you can choose to include either" property income and expenses, or property income only. If you choose income only, "you must report them after the end of the tax year".

For a couple where one spouse already keeps the records, the income-only route means the other spouse's quarterly updates carry just their share of the rent, with expenses dealt with once a year. Both still need records; one of them has a much shorter quarterly job. Our guide to MTD for jointly owned property covers how to split the income and who reports what.

The dates to 31 January 2028

If your accounting period runs 1 April to 31 March, GOV.UK says to use calendar update periods instead; the deadlines are the same, and the periods below shift to start on 1 April.

The MTD deadline calculator gives you these for your own quarter type. If your gross rent was between £30,000 and £50,000 and you are reading this because a friend was caught in the first wave, our post on rent over £30,000 and your January return is the one for you.

What Ledgers does, and does not do

Ledgers connects to the bank account your rent lands in and categorises each transaction as it arrives to the property headings. It records letting agent statements line by line, so gross rent and fees are separate items, keeps mortgage interest apart from capital repayments, and holds the year-to-date totals by category that an update is made of. The landlord plan covers one or several properties and you can start for free.

The update itself does not go from Ledgers, which is not yet on HMRC's recognised list for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. It goes from recognised software, often your accountant's, built from the records kept here. Our guide to the best MTD software for sole traders covers what was on HMRC's list in October, and the MTD for landlords guide has the rest.

Guidance only, not tax advice. Sources: GOV.UK Send quarterly updates, Create digital records and Submit your tax return (all updated 16 October 2026); Sign up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (13 October 2026); Penalties for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (30 March 2026); Check if you need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (26 March 2026); Self Assessment deadlines. All as at 12 November 2026.

Frequently asked questions

I am a landlord and missed both updates. Have I been fined?

No. GOV.UK says there are no penalties for missing a quarterly update deadline for the 2026 to 2027 tax year. The updates are still owed, and you cannot submit your 2026/27 tax return until every one has been sent.

Do I have to send two separate catch-up updates?

You only build the records once. Each update covers from 6 April to the end of the latest period, so the year-to-date totals for April to January already contain the earlier quarters. Your software may still submit each missed period separately; it or your accountant will tell you.

Is my letting agent's statement a digital record?

It is the evidence, not the record. GOV.UK requires you or your tax agent to create and store digital records of each item of income and expense; it does not mention letting agents. Each line on the statement, rent, management fee, repairs, needs to be in your software with its date, amount and category.

What does a property quarterly update actually contain?

Totals for each income and expense category for the year so far. GOV.UK says the categories are the same as Self Assessment, that updates are summaries rather than tax returns, and that HMRC does not receive individual receipts or invoices.

We own the flat jointly. Do we each send updates?

Each owner in scope reports their own share. For jointly let property, GOV.UK lets you include either property income and expenses in your updates, or income only, in which case you report the expenses after the end of the tax year.

HMRC has signed me up without asking. Is that right?

Yes. HMRC says that from September 2026 it is signing up, in stages, people who need to use the service for 2026/27 and have not done so themselves, using information it already holds. You then need software or an agent, digital records from 6 April 2026, and the missed updates sent.

Tools and guides for this

• UK tax rates 2026/27Every rate and threshold in one place, with the source for each.
• Making Tax Digital for Income TaxWho's in scope, the dates, and what to do now.
• Corporation Tax calculatorMarginal relief, short and long periods, and when to pay.

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