to ask what you think about Corbyn and Lammy's suggestion that houses of the rich should be requisitioned to give to homeless Grenfell victims?

[nutter19]

I am not sure what to think about it. On the one hand I agree that there are a lot of very big houses in the borough that are empty and could be used to house the homeless rather than left empty.

On the other hand, it seems a bit sinister to think they would just take private property off those they deem rich.

What do other people think?

btw corbyn lied when he said its in the poorest ward in the country its not nowhere near

he actually said 'it is, I THINK, the poorest ward in the country' I think not absolutely categorically is

Why do posters keep saying Corbyn is suggesting EDMOs?

I thought they could not be used on second homes (provided the owner attended occasionally)?

So how can he use EDMO to 'requisition' empty houses owned by foreigners?

I don't think they can, Carl, at least as it stands at the moment. They could change the rules, of course, but - as I said - therein lies the potential for total meltdown, which would affect us all.

At the end of the day, something needs to be done and it needs to be done now. Council are already saying people will be housed out of the borough, and that's a disgrace.

Kensington and Chelsea will now be a playground of the super-rich.

Oh and if you don't think there's precedent for requisitioning, my mum's friend's ENTIRE village was taken over by the war effort in 1940-odd and then compulsory purchased. 225 residents moved out, with very little compensation. Look up Tyneham in Dorset...

Natalia

Just leave them on the streets eh? Or move them far away from their support network and friends/family? It's OK though, because they're poor and they don't matter.

Can't believe you're moaning about housing prices when people have nowhere to live. What a disgrace.

a couple of years old - but is does show the issues - especially around housing

www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/indicators/boroughs/kensington-and-chelsea/

accidental landlords and ordinary couples renting out their first flat or whatever, won't be affected because they'll have tenants already Precisely. Corbyn is talking about properties which are standing empty and deliberately so because their foreign owners are rich enough not to need the income. So what if the property market goes into meltdown? It needs to go into meltdown so ordinary people can afford to buy homes to live in or even just find homes to rent. The situation at the moment is insane - foreign investors are buying up huge swathes of London with their investments creeping gradually further out of the centre so that people who actually live and work in London and want to buy homes to live in can't afford to do so - and I'm not just talking about teachers and firemen and public sector workers let alone people who earn less than that, but doctors and people in supposedly well-paid preofessions. Why are we letting the mega-wealthy from around the world buy up our housing stock and push up the prices? Sorry if I sound like I'm repeating myself, but I can't understand why people aren't more incensed about this.

I'm not moaning about house prices FFS - that's a stupid interpretation of my point. I can only assume deliberately stupid. I completely agree with you that something needs to be done, but knee jerk reactions are just puerile. Actions have consequences. The sort of actions you are suggesting would send the markets into meltdown....and, ultimately, it will be the poorest in society that bear the brunt of that.

It needs to go into meltdown so ordinary people can afford to buy homes to live in or even just find homes to rent.

It's not as simple as that. It would affect the whole economy. Like it or not, we live in a globalised world. You can ban foreign investment in property, but you almost certainly deter other investment as well. If large swathes of the country falls into negative equity then we fall into recession.If the economy contracts, there are fewer jobs. If the pound falls, prices rise as we are net importers. And then inflation rises. And so on, and so on.

he actually said 'it is, I THINK, the poorest ward in the country' I think not absolutely categorically is
ah i see either he did his research and know it wasnt the poorest ward but said i think so people like you would say he didnt lie or he didn't do any research and made it up on the spot. ill go for the later.
oh and by the way people are doing stuff the housing association my friend works for are allowing all there empty houses to be used this is the same with most ha

At the end of the day, something needs to be done and it needs to be done now. Council are already saying people will be housed out of the borough, and that's a disgrace.

Sure, and there are any number of ways that Corbyn could propose to house these people, but he very purposefully chose the word 'requisition' as a shout out to his left-wing fan base.

Well of course something needs to be done but it must be legal.

All the people saying EDMOs are perfectly legal haven't looked at how they work for second homes ( as opposed to abandoned homes which is what is usual).

its not legal either www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40303142

So Natalia do you think property prices should continue to spiral up and up and up until the only people who can afford to buy properties are foreign millionaires? There will be a few UK residents growing rich on the back of this, but what happens when their children want to buy their own home (particularly if Theresa May gets her way and takes the equity in people's homes to pay for their healthcare)? It's a bit like the council house tenants who rubbed their hands with glee when they learned they could their own council houses - it was a great bonus for them, but the benefits were limited as there were no council houses for the generations who came after either to rent or to buy.

As for inflation, I never understand that argument. What about house price inflation? That has been completely rampant and that is the major outgoing for most people.

Haven't read through the thread but cumpulsory purchase orders are put on property all the time for property developers to take over. In our locale an estate was deemed to be unfit to live in ( residents disagreed) and a compulsory purchase order was slapped on it, estate demolished and new luxury homes built there which the original residents couldn't afford. I see no problem with putting such orders on uninhabited luxury properties.

In order to use these procedures to procure foreign owned property the law would have to be changed.

Not undoable of course. But the proposed changes would need to be carefully looked at to ensure they did not incorporate other properties not intended to be affected ( holiday homes, rental property awaiting tenants etc).

Rushing legislation is never a good idea - law of unintended consequences etc. Plus there's the thorny issue of there being no government right now.

What a twat.... and he could have been PM....

tolly I'm assuming that matter went to court. And the LA won.

Imagine a situation where the LA had to fight case after case to compulsorily purchase properties from private home owners. Some of which they would probably lose.

What sort of timescale would that take?

I don't think all your points are directly related, Lilian. Ultimately, I'm a believer in free markets, with a decent safety net. I don't think you can prevent foreign investment in any area; ultimately, we live in a globalised economy and to row back against that would significantly stifle growth. I think it's the size of the pie that matters, rather than who has what percentage, if that makes sense - the problem with Corbyn's policies is that they will shrink the pie. We may all have an equal share, but it may be a tiny slice....and I don't that benefits anyone, especially the poorest. You encourage growth and investment, then you have more money to spend on better public services. That said, could you, say, increase taxes on foreign property owners who were non doms? Quite possibly. But it's a far cry from the shouts of "requisition" that Corbyn is coming out with.

I completely agree with you re the council house sell off; essentially, that was a huge bung by Thatcher to her fan base. As you say, some people made a lot of money out of right to buy, but it completely depleted the council housing stock. A very bad policy....but sadly all in the past now.

Funnily enough, I thought the social care tax was a step in the right direction. It's a huge problem and requires a huge amount of funding. That policy is far more socialist in nature than anything else, because it would significantly reduce inherited wealth. Think about it this way. My mum owns her own house. If she requires expensive care on a long term basis, should the taxpayer fund that in order to protect my (tax free) inheritance? Or is it fairer that those who can afford it pay for it, while leaving everyone with the same level of residual money?

Inflation is a really complex topic - depends what type etc. At a low level, isn't a problem at all for the economy. But the rise we are seeing at the moment comes from the fact that the pound has sunk post Brexit (essentially, Britain has been devalued by 20%) and we buy in more from abroad (in foreign currency) than they buy from us. So prices rise. And living standards fall, as we aren't growing commensurately. So we are all poorer.

....I should add that this impacts the poorest disproportionately, because they spend more as a percentage of income on goods as opposed to services, which are more likely to be supplied within the UK and not directly affected by the fall in currency.

Creampastry

You'd best get used to it - Corbyn's staying and May will be gone on Monday at the latest.

Requisitioning property is not the way. It feels like it in such a raw situation but it isn't.

creampastry got a better solution?