The Residential Landlords Association is lobbying the Government to reform an outdated law that denies landlords a retirement pension.

RLA chairman Chris Town said: “Residential landlords invest in property and charge tenants a rent to live there. That’s classed as investment income, and our profession is not a recognised trade or business.

“It’s an outrageously archaic law that is well overdue for reform.”

The RLA has written to the Treasury asking if the rules can now be relaxed for people with investment-derived income.

Town said: “In the last few decades, investment has been increasingly encouraged and the various forms it takes have become a principal means of income for a new generation of professional investors.

“The million or so private sector landlords in the UK is probably the largest single example – yet they can only fund their retirement, in advance, by buying things like ISAs and TESSAs.

“Professional landlords hardly ever disinvest when they reach retirement age. Property gets passed to their families or sold on their death. Either way there is still a heavy tax to pay and, for the families, a large slice of accumulated capital disappears without them having had any of the tax relief benefits available to other people.

“It’s about time the pension playing field levelled out a little and that being a landlord was recognised as a legitimate profession,” Town argues.