Property personally or through a BV: how to make a fair comparison

A family is considering a rental property worth €4.8 million with €1.6 million of debt. Expected annual rent is €210,000 and recurring costs plus a major-works reserve are about €75,000. In eight years, the property may be sold or transferred to the children. Personal ownership produces one cash path; a BV another; a BV followed by a distribution to the owner a third.

Comparing annual tax on rent alone omits finance, costs, value changes, tax on extracting cash, administration and the family exit. The same asset and horizon matter more than an attractive headline rate.

Who legally and economically owns the property? Who uses it? How is it financed? What cash does it generate and require? Which event is likely next? Those answers determine what can validly be compared.

Family use cannot disappear inside the word letting. A BV-owned building is not personally owned bricks. For foreign property, build the Dutch baseline before adding the property-country procedure.

Profit after corporate income tax may remain in a BV and fund another investment. Cash in the company and cash available privately are not the same position. A proposed distribution to the owner needs its own line and tax assumption.

Personal ownership also requires debt, use, income, value, sale and succession to be modelled. The output should therefore show three columns: personal position, funds retained in the BV and cash after an assumed distribution.

Repeat the comparison with lower rent, major repairs, more expensive finance and a later sale. If one route wins only in a perfect scenario, that matters more than a small base-case difference.

The final recommendation also considers protection, control, liquidity, the likely buyer, succession and annual compliance cost. The online model shows sensitivity; it does not select the ownership vehicle.