Making Tax Digital: The First Free MTD Software for Landlords

Making Tax Digital Is Coming - And Compliance Shouldn't Cost You

From April 2026, HMRC's Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment (MTD for ITSA) will require landlords earning over £50,000 from property income to keep digital records and submit quarterly updates. By April 2027, that threshold drops to £30,000.

For many landlords, this feels like yet another cost. Most MTD software on the market charges monthly fees or locks essential features behind paywalls from day one. You're being told you must go digital - and then asked to pay through the nose for the privilege.

We think that's wrong.

Radical Transparency: The Free Plan vs. The Paid Plan

At Latch, we believe in radical transparency. So, let’s be totally upfront: Yes, we have a free plan and a paid plan, and yes, our free plan is capped at 3 leases.

Why 3 leases? Because everyday landlords with smaller portfolios are the ones hit hardest by new compliance costs. If you have 1 to 3 leases, you shouldn't have to pay a monthly subscription just to follow a government mandate.

Here is exactly how our model works:

The Free Plan: Everything You Need for up to 3 Leases

Our free tier is not a "lite" version stripped of essential tools. If you have 3 leases or fewer, every core MTD feature we build is available to you at no cost.

• No MTD feature gates: Digital record keeping, quarterly submissions, and direct HMRC integration are fully included.
• No forced upgrades: It's free forever for your first 3 leases, giving you everything you need to confidently meet your MTD obligations yourself.

The Paid Plan: Scale Your Portfolio & Meet Matt, Your AI Assistant

You only move to our paid plan for two reasons: your portfolio grows beyond 3 leases, or you want to buy back your time.

If the free plan gives you the tools to do MTD manually, the paid plan is designed to do the heavy lifting for you. When you upgrade, you unlock Matt, our AI agent. Matt acts as your automated property assistant, taking the manual data entry out of the equation. With Matt, the software automatically categorises your income and expenses, processes your receipts, and intelligently prepares your submissions.

The bottom line? The free plan gives you a fully functional car for your first three leases. The paid plan handles the scale of a larger portfolio and hands the keys over to Matt so you can sit in the passenger seat. You get to choose what works best for your business.

Landlords didn't ask for MTD. Everyday investors shouldn't have to pay a toll just to comply with it.

The Latch Team

Why Make Compliance Free for Smaller Portfolios?

Other platforms see MTD as a revenue opportunity - a captive audience forced to buy software. We see it differently. Landlords are already dealing with rising costs, tighter regulations, and more admin than ever. Adding a software subscription on top of that isn't solving a problem for an everyday landlord. It's adding one.

We're building Latch to remove burdens, not create them. MTD is a legal requirement, not a luxury feature. The tools to meet it should be accessible.

What We're Building

Here's what is included in the Free Plan (for up to 3 leases) to keep you fully compliant:

• Digital record keeping - Your books are always up to date and stored securely. No more scrambling at year-end.
• Quarterly summary reports - Generate the exact summaries HMRC expects, straight from your inputted data. No spreadsheets, no manual exports.
• HMRC-compatible submissions - When the time comes, submit your quarterly updates directly. We're building toward seamless, free integration with HMRC's APIs.

And when you upgrade to the Paid Plan, Matt the AI Agent handles:

• No cap number of leases - Scale your portfolio without limits. Doesnt matter if its 1 lease or 1000 leases Matt can handle it all.
• Automatic income and expense tracking - Every rent payment, maintenance bill, and letting agent fee is read, logged, and categorised automatically.
• Smart receipt processing - Just upload your documents, and Matt extracts the data for your digital records.

All of this sits alongside the property management tools you already use in Latch - tenant tracking, lease management, payment recording, and more.

Users First, Always

We're not building in a vacuum. Every feature we ship starts with the same question: what do landlords actually need?

We're actively listening to feedback from our early users and the wider landlord community. If there's something you need - a report format, a workflow shortcut, a way to categorise expenses that makes sense for your portfolio - we want to hear about it.

This isn't lip service. We've already shipped features directly from user requests, and we'll keep doing it. Our roadmap isn't set in stone. It's shaped by you.

Our Mission: Stop Managing, Start Living

We started Latch because we believe landlords deserve better tools. Not bloated enterprise software. Not clunky spreadsheets.

Our mission is simple: save landlords as much time as possible so they can stop managing and start living.

MTD is just the latest example - a regulatory requirement that we're turning into an opportunity to make your life easier, not harder.

Help Us Build What You Need

We're a small, fast-moving team. That means we can ship quickly and respond to what matters most. But it also means we need your input to build the right things.

Here's how you can help shape Latch:

• Share your feedback - Use the in-app feedback tool or drop us a message. Every suggestion gets read.
• Tell us what's missing - If there's a feature that would save you time, we want to know about it.
• Spread the word - If you know a landlord worried about MTD costs, tell them there's a truly free, transparent alternative.

MTD doesn't have to be a headache. With the right tools, built with landlords, it can be straightforward.

We're building Latch for you. Let's get it right, together.

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Have feedback or feature requests? We'd love to hear from you. Reach out anytime - we read every message.