Second Home owners doing sad faces in the press about council tax increase

I very much doubt a bakery in a small village of eg < 1000 would get the trade to survive without holiday visitors (be they renters or owners). In reality in pretty much every village I know the locals get their supplies from Tesco or similar, only using a village shop for the odd pint of milk or emergency supplies. Small shops simply cannot compete with the supermarket chains on price. Visitors will use the local shop for convenience and be less price sensitive on holiday.

I've watched quite a few village shops stutter and die over the last decade or so in villages of a lot more than a thousand which sustain local schools and active communities. Some convert to tea shop/cafe type places if in popular areas. These are villages with nowhere near 75% second home/holiday cottages. This pattern has been the case for decades now in villages and urban high streets - its not a consequence of second home ownership.

Not necessarily. Some move from, say, Chesterfield or Sheffield where house prices are mostly lower.

It's not a black hole. It's not infinite and expanding. It's a number. If the council overspends it will draw down from reserves, so any additional income will reduce that.

Taking Cornwall as an example (because it's been talked about a lot), it's estimated that over 14,000 properties are second homes (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj9ejjyeeelo.amp). Taking band C as a middling council tax band, which is £2,186.60 in 25/26, charging double council tax would bring in an extra £30.6m pounds. This would cover the overspend (expected to be £20.5m for 24/25 in January - https://www.cornish-times.co.uk/news/cornwall-council-warns-it-is-facing-financial-cliff-edge-within-two-years-659711).

Obviously, if the properties are in higher tax bands, the income would be higher.

If charging extra council tax leads to houses being sold and more people having somewhere to live, that's great. If it leads to more income for local authorities to spend on meetingthe needs in their area, that's also good. It doesn't have to a policy which resolves the whole housing crisis - that's not generally how things work. It's just helping.

It's not the politics of envy, and it's not ideological spite. It's not even socialism. It's fairness - ensuring everyone's basic needs are met.

Surely you can see that unless the markup is ridiculous, a bakery needs more than 2-4 months of trade to survive. In an area where second homes are the minority, they can probably get by on local custom, with your purchases just being a bonus. However when villages are 75% second homes the amenities cannot be sustained and the soul is sapped out of them. That is what this policy is intended to solve.

The amount is peanuts in terms of the overall budget and is likely to be sucked into the black hole of essential services. Either way the numbers are not going to generate much in the way of jobs - that needs a longer term strategy around industry and transport.
Some of these councils have a shocking history of failing to prioritise local people and jobs over vested interests. Voting patterns in the West country have changed a bit - maybe that will make a difference, maybe people are less inclined to vote for the proverbial donkey with the right rosette or family name. I'm sure its similar in other areas, I simply know that part of the world better.

I don't have strong feelings either way about the CT multipliers - it might trigger some genuine sales but I don't see it dramatically affecting actual sold prices any time soon. Anyone facing a substantial capital loss on a sale is simply going to suck up the extra tax for a few years until the model shakes down and prices settle. Putting houses on the market is not the same as achieving actual sales - you need decent accessible jobs in the area to turn second and holiday homes into first homes for families.

The multiplier will make people feel good for a while as it feels like "doing something" but its jobs and transport which maintain communities, not kicking out holiday homers.

There's more to it than helping the local economy, because second homes don't really help that much. They only really help the people that own them & let them or provide work for a few people cleaning & maintaining every week, that's it.
I live in a small coastal village where a lot of the houses & flats have become holiday lets and second homes. This is bad for the local area as there are fewer homes for the young to buy so they can carry on living here when they leave their parents houses & want to stay here to be near family & work.
Key workers for care homes, the nhs schools etc can't get accommodation in order to take up their posts. Our local care home closed last year because they couldn't get enough staff to keep the residents safely cared for as new staff couldn't find anywhere to live. Our village grocery shops are closing too because they don't have enough income during Winter to stay profitable and keep going.
We need to have a minimum amount of children in our school to keep them open or they will close and children will have to be bussed to the city every day which is a very long trot both ways it's at least 70 miles each way. But if families with school age children can't get housing that's what will happen.

The Labour or council strategy is clear, for 2nd home owners to sell. But, which locals will be able to afford them?. What's more sinister in cities Labour have made it even more difficult for one property landlords or accidental landlords to rent out their properties through higher tax liability and the banks are rinsing the landlords with higher bTL rates, great strategy so landlords are selling on mass, only problem, no one to buy them as FTB, downsizers are scared of the financial commitment to move and they are waiting for rates to drop to 1% which will never happen. So these properties have to be rented out at higher rates which people's can barely afford. Landlords are prisoners to banks as well. We all are.

Don’t the newcomers put up house prices?

People living in villages in the Peak District welcome newcomers with children because it helps keep local schools open, many have closed. That is very different to local housing becoming holiday cottages which leads to the decline of local services.

There are plenty of reasons not to holiday in Cornwall, not least hypersonic prices and generally shit weather but in all honesty, never seen hostility displayed to holiday makers.

Newcomers often bring families/children with them, new skills etc but its also the case that almost all housing is not affordable either to buy or to rent.... that causes tensions, especially when many estates are built on farm land and then many bought up as second homes/airbnb's... even by out of area housing associations, usually in deals that involve housing local families in return for Cornwall taking some of their residents.

This was a brilliant idea which genuinely benefitted people in the local community.

‘Outsiders… can just bog off.’

I have seen views like this on Mumsnet over the years. I no longer go on holiday to places like Cornwall. Since the pandemic, there has been such an increase hostility to anybody who isn’t from local areas and many villages have showed their true colours. It’s like watching the League of Gentlemen. All the small-minded comments about Emmets etc. No thanks!

Through work I have met vulnerable and impoverished people in London who would love to do a council housing swap with someone in a rural area. Because of feeling overwhelmed or worried about their kids and drugs. I can only imagine the welcome they would get…

Anyway, re the OP, I reckon anyone is allowed to feel frustrated when they have to spend more for the same thing. For example if my local parking permit charges doubled, I would express annoyance. It is about knowing your audience. I can’t afford a second home or private school etc. But if people who are in this situation are facing a big rise in council tax or VAT etc, I have no issue with them complaining about it. Let’s hope this money here gets used wisely anyway.

That is definitely a second home and definitely a business!
Whilst I'm sorry about your husband's situation I also feel like you're being very selfish!

Because not only are you stopping someone who grew up in that area get on the property ladder (who would contribute to the local community) by buying a house you hardly use, you're also stopping someone who can't afford to buy and needs to rent from getting a property in the area you live. Because even though you could afford to buy a home you decided to rent and use any capital from the sale of your home to buy a second home and rent it out!

It'll bring extra money into the council, which is a good thing. Councils are all absolutely cash-strapped and need to raise revenue income. So it might not act as a deterrent to second home ownership, but it will provide some extra funds, which can be spent on services for local people - which might include supporting local jobs etc.

The council tax doesn’t apply to second home owners - it’s misleading. It may be the only home you own but if you have to work/rent in a city for work, pay council tax there as your main residence (and where houses are too expensive to buy) , and go back weekends or rent it out to cover costs in between, the rules still apply.

The richest owners are the ones who don’t rent out, don’t care if it’s empty and can afford the hit. It’s the in betweeners who will suffer most.

I like your ideas. I'm fed up with people freeloading - occupying public streets which belong to us all with their private property, rent free.

So in areas where the houses have driveways and garages I'd ban overnight parking on streets. People can get a smaller car and clear all of the crap out of their garages. No having more cars than you can accommodate on your own property, you can share them between you and get a bike for local journeys.

More tricky in terraced streets which don't have off-street parking, so I'd initially allow permits for overnight street parking to be issued there for a fee, equivalent to the income the land could have generated if it had another use. The funds will be used to improve public transport and whenever a resident decides not to renew their permit, it does not become available again for anyone else. This has worked very well in many European cities, they have removed tens of thousands of parking spaces and replaced them with facilities that can be enjoyed by many people - wider pavements, cycle paths, play equipment, flower beds, bike racks, café seating etc. rather than the one person who owns that car.

The lack of available housing and the unaffordable cost of housing will lead to increased homelessness, which puts huge pressure on council budgets. So the increased costs can go some way to mitigating that.

Yes, exactly. It's actually worked brilliantly for us.

We're anticipating using the house a bit more now that we can work remotely if we want and the kids are in university, so we're not tied to school holidays. We've built a little guest bedroom/bathroom/kitchenette over the detached garage so they have a place to decamp to if we want to be there during the school year.

We've been really lucky with the people we've found - it's a 1700s house and they've always taken immaculate care of it.

It's certainly had a positive impact where I am. The second homers next door have sold up, the would-be AirBnB investors pulled out when they realised that the regulations were being tightened, and I now have a lovely permanent neighbour.

And a reduction in house prices is a GOOD THING. It's a bit shit if you're mortgaged to the hilt and are in a hurry to sell, but values do need to deflate down to a more reasonable multiple of income.

Now if more people did that, there wouldn't be such a problem. Presumably you occupied it during the school holidays so that it wouldn't interfere with their work.

I agree with the extra council tax charges.
It's essential income for the councils to provide necessary services.
My view is that if you can afford to buy a second home, which is a considerable investment, then you can pay for the running costs too. Besides, these homes can be rented out for extra income.

Sounds like sour grapes and jealousy!

They would be buying if the homes were affordable to them. The UK is obsessed with home ownership. I most of these areas, income and property prices are totally out of balance, partly because of the well off people buying up second homes.

That's a very wide range. What exactly do you mean by 'affordable'?

20% below market value means nothing if it's still out of reach.

Not at all. They are very reasonably priced.