To think that buy to leave should be made a criminal offence

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34930602

I feel it's criminal foreign investors buying flats and neither living in them nor renting them out to keep them pristine. I feel that councils should have the right to compulsorily take over the property and find s tenant after two years. I am not sure what can be done if the owner claims it's a holiday let. (Maybe evidence of bookings)

Reallytired
Amend the council tax system to go up to band Z
Charge triple fees on any property without a person with a UK NI number resident.
Abolish all discounts on council tax above band F

effectively bring in a Land Tax on prime property - sorted.

I don't think it would be criminalised. How would that work? They aren't here, and we'd have to extradite them, and then we'd have to put them up in jail so we'd be stuck paying for them. It sounds like a load of hassle.

You could, however, massively increase Capital Gains Tax for foreign investors. And I mean even more than is currently being done. You could also significantly raise council tax on empty homes that aren't on the market (again, this is happening, but the increase could be greater). Basically, we need to make sure that these alpha wealthy investors with a lot of very mobile global capital are forced to contribute to society.

Oh, and a tax on land holdings is a great idea. That would be transformative for housing. Also, getting rid of the unearned increment, so that any gain in value that came with the granting of planning permission went back to the state for the good of all (e.g. if you have a field worth £9,000 and it becomes worth millions because the council grants planning, that increase goes straight to the Treasury. Because it's not earned - no-one did anything for it, and why should only some people benefit from state-granted permission in the name of the public good? This would stop land banking).

100% agree

Have you seen the 20 million quid properties on Bishops Avenue crumbling having not been lived in for over 30 years!

It's disgraceful.

joseph The first issue with non-residents is that they are not subject to UK taxes. That is why you have to have a charge attached to the property rather than the individual. As a non-resident I must pay council tax on the places I own in the UK, however I don't have to pay capital gains taxes in the UK. I pay them in the country I am resident in, the US. I actually wish I could pay capital gains taxes in the UK. They would be lower for me!

The issue comes in also when you know full well many of their foreign buyers won't be declaring gains in the UK to their country of residence or their country of residence has a low to zero rate for capital gains derived from property.

I also wonder why property developers are exempt from Money Laundering Regulations that were brought in to fight the funding of terrorism.

Posh London Apartments are bought for cash by offshore LLPs where nobody knows who controls them.

So the developers get £1 million of drug / ISIS / corrupt money and no questions are asked.

I have to report to the Police if any of my clients do anything out of the ordinary over £100

I'm confused supermum - I thought the whole point of the changes from April this year was to make non-residents subject to CGT when they sell? I'm pretty sure it now has to be paid?? (I could be wrong, I am no financial wizz).

joseph
UK CGT is a lot fluffier round the edges than US - like yanks pay CGT on their main home

Stamp duty is a drop in the ocean though.
In the UK it must be made too expensive to keep property empty / underused for more than a few months.

The longer you leave somewhere empty, the more expensive it should get. This should apply to anyone who is not a UK or EU resident.

This should apply to anyone who is not a UK or EU resident.
No.
It should apply to anybody

There are mansions in Belgravia that have been empty for 50 years.
They could each be converted into studio flats and house 40 people at a stroke.

The council tax on that empty property should be the same as the B&B costs for all of those people currently being looked after by the Council
as the cost is directly linked

our taxes are paying to house people who are homeless
because rich gits want to keep their properties unsullied by dealings with HMRC

Well, a criminal offence is going a bit far, but the practice of buying property and just leaving it lying idle should be strongly disincentivised through heavy taxation etc.
Unoccupied buildings add nothing to community life, whether in a city centre, a suburb or a rural village.

Maybe you are right.
There are so many unoccupied properties around where I work in London, that my family could live in, yet I have to commute four hours a day. The entire middle class has disappeared out of the community and you basically have social housing or those on tax credits, and the very wealthy, and there is practically nobody in the middle any more. I sometimes wonder why successive Governments and property developers hold me and the likes of me in so much contempt.

gosh OP, you should read a bit about communist Russia and communal apartments.

Criminal is going to far for me, but I like talkiinoeace's ideas.

Settling
Shame the Treasury don't. They were very rude when I sent them a briefing document.
The Bank of England were much nicer

Boffin take a look at my link for the way social housing tenants are being treated. Its just one example of many.

And google Sweets Way.

I'll look for any BOE initiatives that match your shortlist talkin.

"The council tax on that empty property should be the same as the B&B costs for all of those people currently being looked after by the Council
as the cost is directly linked"

That is a good idea. A lot of people think of drunks sleeping on park benches when in fact many homeless are people living in B and B or really cramped or dangerous accomodiation.

If someone wants an investment that will sit there and do nothing then they should buy some art work or gold or shares or jewellery. Buy to leave harms communities by making flat blocks ghost towns and artificially increasing housing costs. It can be argued we need a private rental market (even if it's too big at the moment) but buy to leave does nothing to help the wider community.