Holiday Home

A relative has one, their dc are grown up now. It’s about an hour and a half away, they are down there most weekends and holiday down there for a week at a time. Inbetween them using it both sets of their parents go down, grown up nieces and nephews go down with their partners, their own dc use it with their families. They don’t rent it out to anyone but it’s well used, they think it’s empty for about 2 days a month.
I couldn’t be arsed personally, it’s just another house to look after and maintain plus I like flying off for a guaranteed good weather holiday and we wouldn’t get the use out of a second home here.

How much is it going to cost you in all the extra tax because it’s a second home? Our neighbours just sold their second home because they just could no longer afford the tax (rightly so because it would be better if a home is available to be lived in by local people contributing to the local community and economy). Same goes with maintenance costs when you aren’t there. You’ll need to run heat in the winter whether you’re there or not. And have someone checking on it and turning it over if you are having other people stay - someone will need to come do the cleaning and change the bedding and replace the loo roll and fix stuff.

Are you looking for information on how second homes destroy communities? I live in one of these communities under immense pressure from second homes. Things like lack of healthcare staff - eg women having to give birth at the side of the road due to lack of midwives, not enough teachers, young people forced to move away, no carers for care homes, no neighbours in winter, eroded community cohesion.

But if you've already considered that and you are just looking for info on the small kids aspect for your own family, I'll bow out.

Have you checked the second home council tax rules for that area?

We did this. While our kids were small it was great for them: there was a stream to paddle in, a playground, a beach, a castle …

but once they reached a certain age, they didn’t want to go
at the weekend because of parties/football/etc

Which meant that my dh tended to go on his own to do the garden.

and there’s a lot of work: forst day of every weekend was spent by me cleaning. And then the closedown on Sunday evening was also grim.

there is always some thing that needs doing and being there to meet a tradesman was a pain. Ours was 3hrs away

now the kids are old enough to stay at home alone we go there more. And family and friends use it a lot

and when we have grandchildren it will never be empty