Are second homes and short-term rental properties immoral?

[maranella]

We have a huge shortage of housing in this country and there and more and more stories about seaside towns and pretty villages being hollowed out by homes that stand empty half the year.

So I'm just wondering how other people feel about second homes and ones bought specifically to be holiday rentals? I really feel for people in places like Cornwall, Devon, north Norfolk, parts of Wales and the Lake District, who can't find affordable homes in the towns and villages where they've always lived and worked.

That wasn't my question - my question was in the context of you campaigning and supporting a party who will bring about change in planning consents/permissions on agricultural land. So will you be doing that? Or will you vote for the status quo?

And if you had a house to sell would you restrict that sale to local buyers? Or go for the highest price.

You also didn't answer the question about local services.

Again that would be a planning issue. The houses you linked to above don't appear to have any restrictions such as max 11 months occupancy which would be usual if the planners were only allowing them to be used as holiday homes, so your assertion that they are solely for holiday home use is not backed up by the link you provided.

You also state that you are not allowed to build an additional house on your land for full time occupancy, this is fairly standard across the country and all areas have their local development plans which allow building in some areas and not others. Again this is a matter of planning policy and is decided locally. You say that you could have permission to build a holiday home , I am going to assume you mean a dwelling on your land that you could let out rather than a new freehold property that you could sell off. This again will be a matter of policy decided locally in line with planning laws.

What you seem to be trying to imply however is that you could build a totally new freehold home on your land and sell it off completely but only to a second home owner. I find that extremely unlikely but do please link to the planning policy that the council are following in this matter if this is what you are saying.

@C8H10N4O2 Its easy to throw bricks at second home owners - they are a relatively small group

The issue is that in some locations second home owners and Air BnBs are not a relatively small group, they are the majority.

Oh dear gods - try reading in context. Second home owners are a minority in the population.

And the only places I know where second homes/AirBnBs come close to dominating the stock of housing (because a lot of AirBnBs are not housing) the owners are local.

As I said upthread - you want change in the local area, campaign and vote for it. There is a lot that can be done which currently isn't because as (I think) you agreed upthread - local nepotism holds power. Local, not outsiders.

@C8H10N4O2 Context???? The only context on this thread is second home owners and Air BnBs... families are being evicted from their homes for financial benefit and pleasure of others.

The issue is really simple, buying a second home and letting it out via Air BnB is financially beneficial to a privileged few, it serves a market, but to the extreme disadvantage of others. It is unsustainable, it is clear the damage it does, it is clear how prejudiced it is. If it was one in a hundred, or even one in ten that wouldn't be too bad, if there was a significant financial gain to the local communities via council tax, it wouldn't be too bad. But the local community gains so very little at great penalty.

Roughly half the properties in our parish pay council tax yet the council has to service and maintain the infrastructure that supports them. Local are subsidising second home owners and tourists.

Sorry, roughly half the properties pay NO council tax.

To be honest squatting should be decriminalised.

Deffo! See also theft and fraud! I am so bored of paying tax and buying things, would be so much better if I could just take what I wanted!

What are you on about? You are starting to sound a touch peculiar. I am not sure how you have come to the conclusion I am making a fast buck or having weekends away but don't let that stop whatever little fantasies you are making up in your head about me.

I’ve reported that last post from daftasabroom as it’s a silly personal attack from baseless assumptions.

Don't need to report on my account 🙂Baseless assumptions seem to be some posters stock in trade.

Yes context. A small minority of the population are second home owners. Not all AirBnBs are suitable homes - a great many are converted sheds/garages/annexes in the homes of locals making those evil bucks you hate.

If your local authority is not charging second home owners a fair rate of tax - again blame your elected representatives, its their responsibility to do this as local authorities have done in other parts of the country.

Hate to burst your bubble hun but I'm not a second home owner or deriving any benefit from the practice. I am very familiar with rural areas where the real problem is local big families/landowners who evicted workers to go into the holiday let business and have cheerfully sold to outsiders and dominate the local authorities. You said the same yourself upthread. I suspect East is familar with similar areas.

There are local areas where more controls have been put in place by elected representatives to at least increase the contribution from second homes to the economy or restrict properties to local connections.

So you have a choice - you can campaign and lobby locally to elect better representatives or you can sit on your hands, stick with the status quo and blame outsiders whilst the local landowners laugh at you.

Indeed they do. But it takes the tone of the discussion down and I don’t support that.

My last comment was to eastangular sorry, should have made that clear.

I think I'm lobbying pretty hard right now. Hun.

“Incomers” lol

Incomers 😂😂😂😂

On an anonymous forum which at this stage may have a handful of readers? Yes that will really get the votes out for the unmentioned candidate in the unmentioned electoral area.

This is not lobbying, its dicking around on the internet, a bit of a discussion at best.

As you say upthread in much of the SW
Virtually all developments across the country now have "affordable" or full-time quotas but the developers sell them at market value which is absolutely unaffordable to the locals who have just been evicted. The properties sit idle for a while then the developers apply for a change to the planning permission, which when half the council are family is a foregone conclusion

So join a party who will campaign for change or start a voting group to do that, work with them and bring about that change, knock on doors and gather those votes for change. Otherwise the same old families will continue to screw you over and laugh at you as you blame "outsiders".

You talk about the importance of community whilst rubbishing any community which isn't in an area like yours saying: I think it's because in many suburbia and urban locations community counts for shit. Don't bring that attitude down here (except you do)

I'll tell you something about my "shit" urban community - we work together, we lobby, we talk to our local communities, we vote for what we want and we hold our politicians to account instead of voting the same old nepotistic groups in and then whining on the internet when nothing changes. As a consequence we don't have perfect politicians but we do get a lot of what we need and they are accountable.

So maybe its not my community that is "shit" - it works together and doesn't let the local bigwigs walk all over us. Maybe its yours that needs to up its game.

Yes, if you increase the number of houses available you will lower their prices (and likewise the rents they can attract). Doesn't matter if they're council houses. Blaming private landlords is a distraction from the real problem which is that demand outstrips supply.

Theft has been decriminalised. The police won't bother with shoplifters unless the value is more than £100 and 95% of burglaries go unsolved (in most cases you can't even get an officer to attend).

Talking of elections though, at a council election for one of the wards on the Llŷn Peninsula, a pro-second home Tory stood against an anti-second home candidate (I haven't checked but I'm assuming they represented Plaid). The Tory was comprehensively routed, amassing a sum total of 28 votes.

Immoral?.. don't know if id go that far..
Selfish? Maybe.

If a village has 50 houses.
Someone from 100 miles away buys 1 to keep as an Airbnb or a holiday let or a second home etc.
The 50th local family can't buy a house in that village.
If 10 houses in the village are bought by others, 10 local families can't buy locally.

so on and so on.

if the people buying the houses for them to sit empty don't give a toss about the locals being forced out, that's up to them.. but they shouldn't be surprised that the locals are pissed off about their kids being unable to live in their home village / town etc.

So local people using their votes for accountability? Which may be why Wales has taken more action to address the needs of local people? (Sorry don't know Wales situation so well). That is exactly what they should do.

In Newlyn (population about 3500) just last month a plan was taken forward to build 29 affordable units with a legal covenant to prioritise them for local people. It had the backing of the local planning department in terms of access/services etc So not a massive housing estate but something to take pressure of local people.

The local peoples' representatives saw fit to reject it. Not outsiders, the people that locals had voted into power to make these decisions for them.

In most of the SW you could put a blue rosette on a donkey and it would get elected because they represent the local big families. You get what you vote for.

There is a recurring claim on these threads that AirBNBs are bought by outsiders. In the areas I know bets the holiday lets belong to locals.