Shouldn’t you have to reside in the UK to buy a house here ?

[KangarooKenny]

Just wondering what others think, and considering we’ve got a housing crisis. I was watching Homes Under the Hammer the other day and there was a guy on there who has a business buying multiple houses for non UK residents to own, and presumably rent out, and it got me thinking that surely it should be a rule the owner lives here. This particular one was a guy buying multiple houses for people in China.

But that gets tricky.

DH got sent abroad for a few years with work. Should we have been forced to sell our house (at a loss) when we temporarily moved out of the uk? We rented it for 5 years, then came back and lived in it.
Should friends moving back to the UK have not been able to buy a house to live in on their return (they ofered in November, completed in May, returned home in July).

I hear what you say about people who have no right to reside here, but there are also people who need to be away for a period of time.
But equally, round us at any rate, there is a distinct lack of rental properties. If these houses are owned abroad, and rented is that not currently attractive? Leaving them empty is not acceptable tho.

I think it needs reviewing, but is not as straightforward as must reside to buy.

No but like other countries do we should charge much higher tax.

Plenty of countries have a rule like this where only citizens & residents can buy. I think its a good thing, but our govt will never do it.

Are you also against UK residents owning property in other countries? Including hot, sunny winter destinations on the med?

I come from an area of Spain where people are not able to get on the property ladder thanks to the Brits and Germans that have purchased houses all over the area at inflated prices. Families rent or move further inland if they want to afford a flat.

What are your thoughts on this?

Hmmm but lots of British people buy homes abroad as well so do we want that rule to apply to all countries or just our own?

Yes absolutely - PP’s husband would still have a British passport so could still own his house. But foreign nationals who don’t live here - no way. That’s what’s been largely responsible for the ludicrous London property market - and many of the properties lie empty too. It’s the law in many other countries but in the UK all our government cares about is money 🤬🙄.

In some countries you can buy the house but not own the land its built on, Thailand is one of those I think???

All countries where there is a housing shortage for locals

No second home until everyone has their own home

I think it should be the law in every country - buy a house there, you have to live and pay taxes there. If you get sent overseas with work when you already own it, then fine, you can keep it. But the rich flying all over the world buying up multiple houses they rarely live in and pricing out the locals is unfair. (I live in one such city (Sydney) and have direct experience of this).

I would be absolutely fine with this. The need for affordable local housing trumps the wants of wealthy people every time.

I think second homes should be taxed so heavily that people just decide to use hotels when they're away.

I don't know if this applies to an old family home but there is a housing crisis in Ireland as well. Every outhouse henhouse and warehouse hotel and hostel is packed with ukrainians cooped up and students are turning down places at university because they cannot find somewhere to stay and renters are queueing 150 for one flat. The rules need to dissuade people from buying second homes.
Governments need to urgently build thousands of one bed flats and studio flats and build UP.

And how would you police that @midgetastic ? Sounds great but practically the figures could change every minute on who needs/can afford/wants to own their own home

Surely you can guess what I think when I started the thread.

Until and unless governments of all countries provide or facilitate reasonably priced social housing in plentiful supply then this problem will persist.
I have a home in the UK that I fully intend to return to.
I would not sell it because if I do I won't afford to buy on my return.
I would love it if there was a glut of housing which brought prices down.

Sadly I really can’t, because you won’t believe the amount of people who say the same as you about UK property but then go off every summer to their family house in Málaga which they consider a right, not a privilege.

I'm from Northern Ireland and live abroad. I rent.
I would love to buy a small place I'm NI to stay when I'm at home and to eventually move home to. We don't own a home yet anywhere.
No mortgage company will touch us with a bargepole because we aren't resident I'm NI.

I work in property, and you'd be staggered by the sheer numbers of foreign nationals who buy property on the UK, but don't live here, or have any connection to the UK. At its peak, all the big players, Savills, Knight Frank etc used to hold huge property selling fairs in the Far East to sell London new builds, and they did an absolutely roaring trade.

Compared to lots of other countries, the UK is seen as a very safe place to hold your cash in the form of property assets. Even the 3% extra stamp duty for second homes is a relatively new tax. Otherwise there's very few limitations on overseas nationals owning homes in the UK, which has helped to drive demand and prices up.

I hate to say it, but that ship has long sailed.

You can't buy on Jersey unless you've lived there for 10 years, have licenced status, or were born there. Even renting can be tricky.

I agree OP. The current system needs to be revised.
I think only citizens and residents should be able to buy.
I also think that immigrants on family visas should be able to get a mortgage. Currently, if you’re an immigrant you can only get a mortgage if you have Indefinite Leave to Remain which takes 5-10yrs to be eligible to apply for and another 6months - 2yrs for the Home Office to grant. Not being able to get a mortgage without ILR means that regular working people who are trying to build a life here are barred from home ownership for far too long.

I don’t so much object to people buying homes from overseas, but I do really object to the homes being left empty. We should have staggeringly high council tax on empty properties. That would encourage people to rent them out.

I used to work in high value London residential properties - our clients would build a new block of flats and every single one would be sold to overseas investors - a year later the whole block would still be empty.

Our developer clients would joke about not bothering to wire up the flats cos nobody would actually be living there. It’s just a safe place to invest money.

YES.

And that goes for Brits owning another property abroad if they don’t intend to live there.

There should also be much higher taxes on owning holiday homes in the uk too.

It’s just greed and money that stops these rules being enforced. I live in an area where a 3-bed house with a box garden is £1.7million. That’s absurd. And that’s caused - in part - by people buying (other parts of) London property as a “safe investment” that they never intend to live in and often don’t rent out.

In some countries, people who don’t live there absolutely cannot own a property in that country.

It may be ‘a bit tricky’ but considering that we have an ‘official’ deficit of 1 million homes already and 3 million due to move here from Hong Kong plus human migration skyrocketing everywhere, I should think that in a decent country it would be worth paying some of those fancy law people to work out the kinks, no?

Of course, this is Britain.

Only citizens and residents should be able to buy. Far Eastern investors are buying up parts of the West Country when we have a terrible housing crisis. It’s not just brits snapping up homes for Airbnb.

That should be a crime. It’s unfathomable that people down the road from that block of flats will be living in poverty, struggling to pay their rent or heat their properties.

There should be a cap on sales of new builds to foreign buyers (foreign meaning not resident or not a citizen, not resident immigrants). There should be much higher additional stamp tax. There should be a ban on buying with no intention to live in it or rent long term, to stop the mass conversion of properties onto AirBnBs.