To think people who own more than 3 properties should have a special tax applied to them?

[Calltheguards]

I'm just thinking with the housing crisis, should people really own more than 3 properties? I would assume it's a property portfolio and used to exploit renters. AIBU to think there should be a special tax applied to property owners who own more than 3 properties? Maybe tax them at a really high rate to discourage people from hoarding property.

@M3lon
What a disgusting accusation to make. I’m a parent to a child with SEN (physical and mentally) that will never live independently.

It’s not one extreme or the other. You’re not both fit, able and LUCKY or physically and mentally incapacitated and UNLUCKY. There’s many who fall in the middle, who have luck no drive, drive and crap luck.

Believe what you want to believe and sling all the mud you like. I don’t agree.

@JaneEB- no, council houses are good. We have a 1930s ex council place. Better than developers hoarding land and releasing houses slowly to keep prices high.

If you buy more than one property you have to pay an extra 3per cent in stamp duty.

My daughters both had small studio flats which, now they are married, they rent out. In addition to paying tax, service and management charges insurance etc the local council has now introduced a property licence fee of around 600 pounds.

I think that is more than enough ....

BR1234 or whatever, you may think that's 'more than enough', but I'm thinking the new laws about rental properties and fairness might not!

I think there should be significant property taxes full stop.

Shelter is a basic human need, it shouldn’t be commercialised, in my opinion. Buy to let has got out of hand, partly responsible for pushing up house prices and forcing young people to rent. Very hard to buy a house on a single income now. I bought my first flat by myself, when I was 23. Mortgage was affordable and I managed to save up a 10% deposit because the purchase price wasn’t extortionate. Don’t think I’d be able to do it now. That flat has just sold for 3 times what I paid for it in 2000.

I can’t remember when you could buy a house on a single income.

I live in London but come from the north My first property bought in the north in the 70s was 9 times my net salary. I couldn’t ever afford to buy on my own.

Buy to let has got out of hand, partly responsible for pushing up house prices and forcing young people to rent

Btl didn’t do that. FTBs did that.
I have bought and sold many properties.

From my own experience a FTB will come and view the property.
They have the mortgage sorted. They can afford the place.
Everything is perfect.
Reasons a FTB won’t seal the deal and become homeowners I swear would make a best selling novel.

They don’t like the colour of the sofa (The sofa wasn’t included). They don’t like the colour of a wall, the house is too good for them they need to struggle first, the place isn’t haunted, the place is haunted, they are dead, they prefer to save so they can afford something better, the ordinance survey says the road is about to be widened it says so on this map.(had to point out that the bit they thought was earmarked for widening was actually the GPObox at the bottom of the garden), the Feng Shui isn’t right.

I could go on.

One flat I owned was sold 3 times. Each time a ftb said they wanted the place it took them 3 months to pull out of the sale. 9 months later I returned it to the market 9 months and £20,000 more expensive and a btl landlord bought it and had signed for it within the week.

It’s not that FTBs can’t buy, it’s more to do with the fact they won’t buy.

I can’t remember when you could buy a house on a single income.

I bought on single income, but could do it only because we really researched areas and I got a house in lovely, safe and quiet area within non desirable postcode. Couldn't afford it in a better one and tbh after seeing crime stats, I wouldn't even want to live in the better area😁

If people want to see what the problems are when selling, check out the seller/buyers threads in property section. Some reasons are indeed ridiculous when people are backing out or trying to haggle day before exchange over nothing basically. It very much supports what @Oliversmumsarmy says.

Bit of an eye opener was when I was chatting to a friend who said, they will never be able to buy a house. I whisked up a pen, paper and calculator and now she knows she can actually save the deposit in just over 2 years🤷‍♀️ It included possible price rise and it's not even going frugal by far! I believe that lots of people who live in cheaper areas just got stuck in that "never gonna happen" even though it actually can happen, but if someone repeats to you the negative version al the time, you will just believe it eventually.

Understandably London and majority of the south are different to this with the prices being crazy.

I think there should be significant property taxes full stop.

There are! Income tax on rental profits. Stamp duty on purchase. Council tax is extortionate. VAT is 20% on property maintenance/improvements and agents' fees. Capital gains tax on sale. Insurance premium tax.

I think there should be significant property taxes full stop

Why?

Either way it would hurt you,

If you have decided not to buy then you will rent.

Any extra property taxes will just make rent more expensive.
Look at what’s happened to rent in the recent past. Tax relief taken off mortgage interest. Rents have gone up because either the rent has been raised to compensate on the Landlords losses or landlords have sold or turned their property into Airbnb and so fewer rental properties create more demand and higher rents.

Or you decide to buy and you get stung by the taxes as well.

Very short sighted

@oliversmumsarmy

I bought a flat in 2000 for 60k. I sold a few years ago for 150k, when I moved to my house. The same flat has just sold for 180k.
This is in Manchester not London. My salary in 2000 was 18k, I was still on a grad scheme. The flat has tripled in value, Graf salaries haven’t tripled.

• graduate salaries haven’t tripled.

Ivy44

My salary in 1999 was just under £10,000 per year. (In London)

However even if I had that salary in Manchester I could never have afforded a £60,000 place. I don’t think mortgage companies offered 6 times your salary

@oliversmumsarmy
They used to be stricter, it was 3.25 or 3.5 your salary from memory (if buying as a single person). They also let me add my annual bonus on.

16 - 18k was about what all my friends were on as grads with 2 years experience. Grads are now on about 20-24k in my place of work. Grads couldn’t afford the flat, now it’s worth 180k. They’re going to be looking at something worth about 80-90k, unless they have a massive deposit.

I was responding to a comment saying that it used to be possible to buy on a single income. Me and many of my friends did buy on a single income, in the North though.

Actually even stricter than that. When Dp and I bought our first it was 2.5 x his salary and 1x mine.

Given at the time I am sure I couldn’t even get a credit card as a woman on my own I was sure they would have never given me a mortgage.

There's already an extra 3% stamp duty on 2nd or further properties, though of course it wouldn't have applied to those who already had several.

What I do think is essential - successive governments inc. Labour have been unbelievably lax - is compulsory registration of all landlords, so it's far easier to check that they're paying tax on rental income. Too many see it as optional. Not long ago I heard of one doctor telling another that she was mad to be declaring her rental income - 'We never have!' And I've heard of many other cases.

I say this as a LL myself.

This is exasperating. I bought my first house at 24 on an income of £16,000pa with my partner 28 at the time on the same income. ( Now in our early/ mid thirties). We worked non-stop and after 8 years together when we wanted a child the only way we could afford it was to have a rental income to meet the mortgage payments as DP wages were unpredictable and we couldnt manage without my income. Obviously our incomes have gone up significantly since then but only through our own efforts. We spent all our savings on the tax for the purchase and remortgaged our property to make that happen. We continued to save and now have a third property we live in. We rented our houses below market value to people who would look after the houses. We have paid large sums of money towards the taxes already for the properties we have and the rent simply covers the mortgages and taxes- which we are happy with. We contribute quite enough to the tax man thank you. We both come from families who had little and simply instilled a work ethic and drive in us. Why are you not more angry with the frivolous way our taxes are used by the government or the fact big businesses are not appropriately taxed? If people have more than one house why is it a negative rather than as a result of hard work?

@olivers
My mum wasn’t allowed a mortgage in her own name, even though she worked at NatWest. The reason given was that they expected her to give up work when she married and had children. This was in the mid 1970s so not that long ago. I don’t think women were allowed mortgages as a single buyer until the 1980s.

I read somewhere that women had to get their husband to sign off their income tax return until about the 1980s too? Basically giving men control of their finances.

The problem today is being a baby boomer I keep getting told all the things I could do because I was born when I did.

What no one takes on board was as a woman you couldn’t.

I worked for a big bank in the 70s and couldn’t get one of their credit cards unless my father went guarantor and signed to say if I was a silly girl and messed up he would pay the amount back.

I had no idea where the Hell my father was. He walked out when I was little so without a male relative to keep me in check then I couldn’t get any financial products.

So all those talking about graduate salaries and how you could get a mortgage and buy in your own name please get real.

You are lucky to have been born when you did.

In 1979 the world of finance was a very different place to the world of the 1980s

Also as a woman (regardless of so called equal pay) you were paid less than a man.
I used to come out with £80 per month.

Out of that rent was £60, travel was £1 per week. Gas electric food, clothes etc took up the rest.