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Property has long been one of the most popular ways for families in the UK to build and hold wealth.

And for good reason. It is tangible, it generates income, and over the long term it has tended to grow in value.

But owning property, particularly buy-to-let property, comes with a tax burden that many landlords do not fully appreciate until it is too late to do much about it.

The problem is not one tax. It is three.

The first is income tax.

If your property generates rental income, that income is taxable. Depending on your wider income position, a significant proportion of what your tenants pay you each month could be going straight to HMRC.

The second is capital gains tax.

If you sell the property and have made a gain since you bought it, that gain is subject to capital gains tax. Property values have risen substantially over recent decades, which means the gain on a property held for a long time could be considerable.

The third is Inheritance Tax.

Any property you own at the point of death forms part of your estate. Which means that even if you have already paid income tax on the rent and capital gains tax when you sell, the underlying value of the property could be taxed again at 40% when you die.

That is the triple hit. The same asset, taxed three times, in three different ways, at three different points in time.

For portfolio landlords in particular, the cumulative effect of all three can be substantial.

The good news is that there are strategies available that can help reduce the exposure at each stage, and particularly at the Inheritance Tax stage, where careful planning can make a significant difference to what ultimately passes to the next generation.

But those strategies need to be explored before the decisions that trigger the tax are made, not after.