geteilt von: https://sh.itjust.works/post/38301389
To try to tackle this, the Welsh Labour government, alongside Plaid Cymru, introduced measures to curb second-home ownership. This included giving councils the ability to push council tax on second homes to 300% the usual rate. They also closed a loophole whereby second-home owners could register as a business in order to pay the much lower business rates.
Gwynedd council used these powers to hike council tax to 150% in April 2023. By the end of 2024, house prices had fallen by 12.4% as second-home owners tried to sell up. In Pembrokeshire, house prices fell by 8.9% after the council increased the council tax to 200% on second homes (though this was reduced to 150% recently).
I’ve been saying that for a while that secondary residences should lose all tax benefits and should also have additional tax penalties applied to them as long as there is a housing crisis.
Like a second house should cost you double, and if you get a third, then the second and third should cost you triple, and so on and so forth, so that having multiple homes would be a sign of wealth and not an investment practice.
You roll that out with a gradual phase in and you would solve the housing crisis in like 7 to 10 years.
The penalties should be higher for short term rental properties-if it’s listed on Airbnb or VRBO or similar, taxes double.
This should be tied to the multiple properties IMO. With home prices today you may have to AirBNB out the house and live in a shed in the yard for a few years just to afford the mortgage.
Agree, and I missed the fact that I didn’t make that clear. If Airbnb stayed what their initial marketing portrayed them to be (connecting people who had a spare room or mother-in-law suite that was unoccupied with people who wanted a more genuine local experience,) I’d have no problem with them.
Yeah government needs to start ratcheting down on landlords. Tax rental properties as commercial businesses, as well as taxing rental income at a higher rate. If a landlord can’t afford that anymore, then they sell the property and get a real job.
A general wealth tax is much more effective.
I agree there needs to be some kind of exponentially growing tax rate for multiple houses. It might kick in after two houses since a single shared vacation home between a family should be fairly affordable.
That being said its basically impossible to get a vacation home now. No one should have 3+ homes without paying much much more.
I can’t wrap my head around why anyone needs or wants more than one house or flat.
Maybe because much of my life has been lived in areas with holiday homes, and the seasonal nature of life going from hardly anyone around to overrun with privileged assholes feels intensely unnatural and damaging to places where communities used to exist.
Overwhelmed with second homes / vacation homes are not sustainable. I guess my idea of a second home / cabin is much more upper Midwestern USA than what happens in the UK.
We can’t sustain everyone owning a holiday home in the UK, we are in a housing crisis.
Are the 1st second residences in places where people live (have jobs, etc)?
Because in most countries, is rather the 2nd, 3rd, etc second residences, which are a problem.
Yes, but people who live there have been priced out of the area as they can’t afford to rent or buy anymore. People whose families have lived there for generations. It’s actually causing a staffing crisis in some areas too, as some shops/cafes in the area I used to live couldn’t open as they couldn’t find anyone to work there. Everyone has had to move away to find a home and all the people came down to their holiday homes and complained that none of the shops were open. Serves them right.
Turning a place were people live into some kind of theme park for Tourists destroys it as a place to live in and to conduct any business other than Tourism.
You see it in places like Barcelona, Amsterdam and Lisbon, some of which have already started to crack down on it.
I think in my country the residential houses have different legistlation than vacation homes, like little cottages by the lake. Though the vacation home is required to not be suitable for year-around living, if you have a modern house by the lake it’s treated like a residential house.
In Scotland we have a thing on some homes - like trailers park sort of things - that requires them not to be used for living for at least one month out of the year. They’re cheap to buy (like £30k for a beachside home with a deck and shared facilities) but you’re not technically allowed to live there permanently.
Same here, vacation homes are not really usable as a full timelive in places in my country. They are relatively cheap as they’re in bears ass usually and often even lack a wc.