to have little sympathy for this landlady facing a £20,000 tax bill

I have some sympathy for her. She isn't sitting on 8 buildings. She has one building, the size of a very large house and that building contains 8 miniature holiday lets. It doesn't look like one holiday let of that size would be a suitable permanent home for a family. So it's definitely not 8 permanent homes that she is hoarding.

I also don't think that running holiday lets is an unreasonable business for someone to have? They are very obviously not second homes so it does seem awful to charge her council tax as though they are.

Not sure why the hatred on this thread for her.

I suppose the best thing for her to do would be to sell the entire building, pay the £20k charge and move on. That would mean that these holiday apartments aren't available for people who have enjoyed using them and she no longer has income on which she presumably pays tax. Seems like everyone loses.

It is a ballache to change them from business to private use though. I used to have a holiday cottage next door. In an old outbuilding of a farmyard, it took about two years to get planning permission and divide the property upon divorce as we agreed to split it. Informed the council and they couldn’t charge domestic rates until sale went through which incurred massive backdated bill of double council tax.

Possibly grim or possibly not, some are, some aren’t, @Needtosoundoffandbreathe. Obviously, there are different rules about what is suitable as holiday accommodation and residential accommodation. If you are staying for a week, you don’t need the same space as you do to live in eg bunk beds in room 6 x 6 feet are fine for 2 DC on holiday but not to live in, you only need a tiny kitchenette if you are just cooking a few meals on holiday.

Here is a photo of the actual property from her website. They aren’t too small compared to some holiday flats but they are very outdated.

Properties like that sell for about £250k for the entire building. She can’t just sell some flats as they aren’t individual properties and I doubt she can sell the building/business. No one wants to buy them. They are white elephants.

Zero sympathy. She's running a business , it the business isn't profitable she needs to sell

As others have said, I expect she gets a lot of cash in hand type custom

@KnickerFolder I get your point (and love your username!)

But if they’re tourist hotel or hostel rooms rather than individual flats, in a neighbourhood where council planning rules are that they should be used for tourists, then she’ll have to sell to someone else who wants to let to tourists.

Her business is failing if she can’t let for most of the year. Blackpool can attract many types of visitor throughout the year: summer holidays, winter breaks, weekends away, conferences and conventions, business visitors, a base (e.g. for walkers) to enjoy the wider region. She’s clearly not appealing to the widest market. She needs to view the competition and see what they offer and charge, work out what people need, e.g. modern facilities, good beds, good Wi-Fi.

If, like any failing business, she can’t afford to invest to make her business profitable after paying taxes, she’ll have to sell to someone who can. That’s the nature of business.

However, if residential conversion is allowed, large, self-contained studios in the centre of town can provide an affordable home to single people and couples, especially young people, so they don’t have to pay travel costs to get to work or go out. It’s nicer to have a self-contained bedsitter, with your own kitchenette and en-suite, than having to live in a house share.

Absolutely no sympathy here.

8 properties all with less than 70 nights stay per year is not a viable business model. She’s obviously not putting through the accurate amount of nights so it’s her own fault.

I’m sure selling one of the properties will clear her tax bill. I wouldn’t be embarrassing myself by sad facing to the press about this.

Very good point.. has this not occurred to the bbc... oh wait.. 🤦‍♀️

No, I’m not a hypocrite, any more than renters who want change are hypocrites.

The difference between me and BTL landlords is that I admit that I use property that I think should be regulated more effectively, for the wider good. But BTL landlords just want to make money by housing people with as few inconveniences to their income as possible.

Communist? 🙄

This sounds worse if the places aren't capable of being lived in full time! Grim.

@EdithBond I agree. In NYC, for example, streets are zoned and Airbnb is illegal in areas classified as residential. I cancelled "hotel" accommodation I'd booked there after doing research and finding out it was an illegal operation. The people running it absolutely were banking on making more money than any fines they'd receive and had a free cancellation policy.

Generally in the UK we have a very laissez fairer attitude to business, etc and as long as people pay the necessary charges there is no intervention from the authorities.

I think everyone may be misunderstanding the type of property this is. I come from a town that has (or had) lots of these “holiday apartments”.

They aren’t flats that you could live in. It will be like an old school B&B but the rooms will have some catering facilities. It isn’t purpose built. Think of an old house with big rooms where there is a kitchenette in a corner and a bit sectioned off for the bathroom. Or a bed sit in an HMO. There will probably be an owner’s flat in the building where she lives.

They couldn’t be sold off individually as they won’t have planning permission or meet building requirements to be separate dwellings. I don’t know about Blackpool, but often seaside towns have rules about not being allowed to let holiday apartments as residential apartments to protect the tourist trade. She would probably need planning permission for change of use but may not get it as there are often “hotel zones” where the council won’t allow change of use. They don’t want to lose tourist accommodation and they don’t want them to be turned into HMOs. TBF, I can also see why a 70 year old woman wouldn’t want to turn her home into an HMO. Certainly, where I came from, many of these properties have ended up as HMOs where most of the residents are men with drug and alcohol issues.

If it isn’t making a profit and needs updating, it will be hard for her to sell it as a commercial property. It may well be unmortgageable.

Totally agree. She’s not the brightest button in the box but just because she was born at a specific time then managed to amass lots of assets / money

YANBU

If she has a tax bill, like any business, she can liquidate assets to pay, by selling one of her numerous properties.

IMHO, owning several homes, which aren’t used as homes, while there’s a housing and homelessness crisis, is pure greed. Greed used to be bad, but it now appears to be seen as success. We need to get back to a self-rationing mentality: it’s morally right to only take what you need of a finite or limited resource, to avoid others going without.

Council tax should be payable on homes whether they’re used or not. Higher if sat empty, as it’s a wasted resource and undermines a vibrant neighbourhood where people spend money in neighbourhood businesses, e.g. in shops, eateries etc.

Holiday lets should have a separate planning use class, requiring planning permission, as it’s effectively turning residential land use into commercial. Different taxes should apply. It should be left to local decisions whether to give permission to convert to holiday lets, depending on what balance local people want between a good supply of affordable homes and encouraging tourism to boost the local economy and create jobs.

Then you're a hypocrite and what you're suggesting the owners should have to do is communist in approach.

The income to local businesses from people renting her properties will be massive

Hardly, if she's not managing to let them for even 70 nights a year.

It's not disgusting to expect the wealthy to pay their dues like everyone else has to do. These laws are in place for a reason. If you are concerned about landlords providing value to the local area, then you will surely agree that nobody should be sitting on housing stock which
A. cannot be inhabited by locals
...and...
B. distorts local property prices making it harder for locals to inhabit any local property
...and...
C. does not let the property to holidaymakers for enough nights per year to bring a significant amount of wealth into the area
...and...
D. does not pay the council tax that those properties would attract if they weren't tied up as underused "holiday lets".

Something has to give. She isn't providing value to the local area as a holiday let owner by letting for the minimum 70 nights, so she must pay the council tax that's due. And if she can't, then she needs to sell one of her EIGHT properties to meet that legal obligation. She'll be fine.

For that reason I have even less sympathy. These are homes people could be living in full time.

I’m happy to stay in an Airbnb. But I’m not happy that Airbnbs and BTL generally have put such responsibility and money into the hands of essentially unregulated landlords. You shouldn’t be able to become a landlord without rigorous checks, large cash holdings, compulsion to sell to long term tenants at a substantial discount, extra taxes, and so on.

There are social priorities way above ‘nest eggs’ and ‘a nice little earner’.

I DODGED TAX BECAUSE THE DAILY MAIL AGREED WITH ME

is never going to be the accurate headline for this story though. Although it is admirably clickbaity.

TEN WAYS TO DODGE YOUR TAX - YOU WON'T BELIEVE #7

is something ChatGPT proposed after being trained on Daily MailaGraph content for a few seconds.

Surely businesses would benefit much more from 365 day occupation, than 70 day?

WTF?
I am a LL of one long term let and I have zero sympathy for any LL who fails to pay due tax or ignores the rules. I’m afraid to say there are probably far too many of both. Zero sympathy for any of them who get caught.

Without wishing to sound too snobby - and I'm sure you'll know what I mean here - Blackpool isn't exactly the classiest resort in the world, and I suspect cash-in-hand, off the books transactions probably make up about 80% of this woman's business. People renting them get it cheap and ask no questions, she keeps everything hidden from the taxman and pretends they're only occupied a bare minimum of nights.

Then they get all sadface when it bites them on the arse.

Fab. So I shouldnt pay tax on anything because I don't like the rules.

Great! Let's all do that.

Anyone who is critical is just jealous because they havent decided to do the same.

(Facepalm)

At least try and have a coherent argument please.