Second home owners... what are you doing about your property?

[DareIask]

We haven't visited since September due to restrictions.

Becoming a little concerned as we've never left a property over winter and not sure what we'll go back to. There's no heating on, and although pipes freezing is unlikely I just worry about damp etc

Any experience anyone?

I know this is a privileged problem to have and I have no intention of starting a debate on second homes. Just empty ones

Thanks

[Iknowwhatudidlastsummer]

In my area people are getting fined for visiting holiday homes...
I wonder how much fine the royal family has to pay...

[Changi]

I wonder how much fine the royal family has to pay...

Presumably, the same as the rest of us.

[SpaceRaiders]

Work just outside Cambridge. Average terrace is £428k.

Then you buy within a 10 mile radius and commute. I used to live in a village south of Cambridge so I know that area well. No one I knew who worked in and around Cambridge lived in the city itself, prices are just extortionate. There are plenty of properties around 140k+ in the surrounding towns and villages, Newmarket, Ely, Duxford, Soham etc.

It seems people only want to live in desirable places, at houses well above their budget. Wouldn’t we all!

[TeenTitan007]

Ours is in London but a long drive. We have a neighbour who checks on it for us and runs hot water on the taps. We went in just before New Years and turned on the heating.

Post your neighbour a key with a request to check for you perhaps?

[ReceptacleForTheRespectable]

@Zenithbear

"Second home owners destroy communities and local economies because they swan in for the weekend and then fuck off again" .

Not if they spend lots of money in the cafes, pubs, shops and restaurants and visit the local attractions that local people tend not to do.

Our property is on 5°c standby and has cctv and is as secure as possible. We had a maintenance issue which we had to go and sort as it's been closed to us since the last weekend in October. We literally drove there, did the job and drove back.

This is bollocks. Local people visit the local attractions, cafes, pubs and shops all year round, not just in the holidays. I live somewhere that people come to on holiday and I don't spend my life sat indoors, not visiting the places that are within spitting distance of my home.

Local people also use other services like the post office and school - these are the things which disappear when a village has too high a proportion of second homes.

[BiddyPop]

We don't but my DPs do, they managed to visit in mid-December (restrictions had lifted here for Christmas) just to check as they hadn't been since June. They were there before the worst of winter cold had happened, and have now left it with low level heating on.

There is a neighbour with keys who keeps an eye as well (and on a number of other houses in that road that are holiday houses) so noticed a roof tile missing earlier in the autumn and got that fixed.

I think it's going to be a while yet before anyone gets back there again.

[ReceptacleForTheRespectable]

@Iknowwhatudidlastsummer

If you can afford a second home then you can afford to pay a local property management/maintenance company to oversee it whilst it is empty

the bitterness is strong on this one.

Actually, that poster is completely right. Living next to an empty property isn't a great thing, for various reasons. The neighbour will never be able to as the second home owner to look out for their home when they are away, so it's a totally one sided arrangement. It's entitled in the extreme to assume that people living in holiday areas have nothing better to do than look after your luxury purchase.

[BiddyPop]

In my DPs case, while there are periods it is empty, it actually gets used a lot throughout a normal year. Family gatherings for New Year and Easter. DPs spend a month or 2 there in spring and autumn. Visit again in early December and some trips in summer (from odd weekends to 6 weeks at a time, depending on the year).

With lots of visits by our family and DSiblings as well, again from odd nights or weekends, to a fortnight for summer holidays. Some trips are big family trips or a couple of DSiblings (and families) at once, and some are just individual (or our own family - DH and DCs).

Yes, it might seem wasteful, but this is a place where we had gone on holidays for over 20 years renting cottages before they actually bought somewhere for themselves. And instead of 1-3 visits per year, has increased to someone being there at least 5 months out of the year. And we all spend locally, between the food shopping and having time to enjoy clothes shopping and browsing the book shop, and services like eating out and surfing lessons and green fees for golf etc.

Even with the restrictions of 2020, there were people in the house in January, February, St Patrick's long weekend, fairly continuously over late June to mid August, and then again a long weekend in December.

[Iknowwhatudidlastsummer]

ReceptacleForTheRespectable

It's not like I expect local neighbours to look after your property for free - even if some lovely neighbours do in the real world

it's the 'you must be rich" I was rolling my eyes at. A 2nd home owner might be richER than you, but it doesn't mean they have any spare cash at all. You don't know and it's stupid to assume they do.

Before some idiot on here starts talking about tiny violins, some people go on holidays and luxury ones during the year, have expensive cars etc, others chose to have another house or end up with one for various reasons.

Some holiday homes are newly purchased in expensive areas, some are the family home in not so expensive areas.

[ReceptacleForTheRespectable]

People are entitled to own a second home. It's legal. But what grates on me is when they claim things like:

• they put more into the community than locals because they visit attractions and use local businesses (because locals just sit indoors staring at the wall, apparently)
• it's reasonable to ask locals to keep an eye on their house for free
• no one else wants these homes as they aren't big enough (No, it's just that the young people who might buy a 2 bed have been priced out)
• the community hasn't suffered as a result of having more second homes.

I do think holiday lets are in a different category to second homes. Holiday lets, if they are operated as a proper business, are let out for the vast majority of the year (so the neighbours don't have to live next to a cold damp house, and the high occupancy rate is good for tourism income), and they tend to be looked after by an agent or local worker as part of paid arrangement (not relying on the goodwill of neighbours).

Second homes where the owners turn up from London on a Friday evening, bringing their shopping with them, and are vacant the rest of the time are a drain on the community, not positive at all.

[OrangeSamphire]

Totally agree @ReceptacleForTheRespectable. If the empty second home next to us was occupied as a holiday let we might not have 50% of our house freezing and the next door house leaching our heating for four months of the year.

Would be better to sell it to a permanent resident but failing that I’d take it being run as a holiday let.

We already have to unblock their outside drains, pull up the weeds from their bit of the driveway and cut back their bamboo several times a year. Oh and deal with a massive wasp nest.

It’s so annoying and I do wish they’d bloody well sell the place. But they feel entitled to their ‘few weeks a year by the sea’ because they’ve holidayed here for 20 years

[Pearlwindow]

Totally agree that it’s really unfair to expect a neighbour to look out for the property.

[antidisestablishmentarianism]

To all of you with second homes in beautiful parts of the country PLEASE stay where you are. We don’t want you here increasing pressure on our inadequate health services and spreading your viruses in our lovely county.

Ring your local pub and see if they will check on your house. They are bored. And stony broke.

[LizDiz]

There is some CF on here suggesting you send the neighbour a key so they can 'Keep an eye'. I'd tell you to jog on if that was me, pay for an agent to look after it tight arses. If you can afford to leave a second home empty you can afford for someone to look after it.

[Iknowwhatudidlastsummer]

Blimey I am glad I have much better neighbours than some of the posters on here!

and some points are ridiculous

we might not have 50% of our house freezing and the next door house leaching our heating for four months of the year. you can't blame your neighbours if your own property is not insulated properly. It's not up to neighbours to heat your home! And your point does not apply to all the detached properties anyway.

[OrangeSamphire]

They are stone cottages @Iknowwhatudidlastsummer. If one in the terrace is unoccupied it draws heat from the other properties. It’s basic physics. Nothing to do with insulation.

Neighbours here return favours for each other. Second homers don’t.

[OrangeSamphire]

It’s a personal anecdote. Nowhere did anyone say that everyone’s individual circumstances apply universally. Honestly this site is so lacking in intelligence but packed full of pedantry. FFS.

[Iknowwhatudidlastsummer]

Neighbours here return favours for each other. Second homers don’t.

you are unlucky, I am obviously lucky I have good and considerate neighbours, without a chip on their shoulder who resent others. That might help.

[OrangeSamphire]

How can they when they’re only here a minority of the year? It’s just a fact of circumstance. They are perfectly nice people but they will never be able to contribute to the community in a reciprocal way.

[OrangeSamphire]

But I’ll just keep on cutting back their overgrown garden, unblocking their drains and watching with dismay as the condensation gathering inside their empty house begins to cause damp on our connecting wall

[Iknowwhatudidlastsummer]

Not talking about me, but I can think of more than a few people who contribute a lot more to the local community of their holiday home than the community of their "first" home which is just a based used for work and school.

Plus having absent neighbours tend to be bliss for everybody! Less noise, less risk of disturbance, many people would pay a fortune for that - providing you don't have the neighbours from hell obviously.

[OrangeSamphire]

I can think of one family like that too, who live and work in London some of the week and are here the rest of the time, every weekend, all throughout every school holiday, and they take part in the community here. They’ve made a real effort. It’s lovely.

But all the other second homes in the village aren’t like that. Many are empty most of the time and that begins to erode a community when the numbers get high enough. We’re at that tipping point here now, although other villages locally have already long surpassed it and have since lost their school, village shop, and other vital amenities that are the glue.

[OrangeSamphire]

Anyway, this is a massive derail. Sorry OP. Just pay someone local to maintain your property during lockdown.

[Changi]

It’s basic physics. Nothing to do with insulation

Basic physics suggests that insulation has something to do with it.

[OrangeSamphire]

In a brick house with cavity walls yes @Changi.

Not in a stone cottage.