Can I transfer my properties into a company set up to reduce my tax? If so does it matter how old the property valuation is?

You can transfer your properties into a company if you think that it will save you income tax, but there are three difficulties in doing so: (A) transferring will most likely cause you to pay capital gains tax;. (B) it will also probably cause the company to pay a lot of stamp duty land tax and (C) it will not be easy to transfer the existing mortgages from you personally to the company. Possibly there are ways to deal with the first two of these, but these are beyond the scope of this column. Any valuation used must be the valuation of the properties at the date of the transfer into the company; it doesn't help to use an old historical valuation, unless of course the value hasn't changed.