To think that owning a second home to use as a holiday home is extremely selfish?

[benadrylcucumberpatch]

It would be a different story if there was a surplus of vacant properties . As it stands holiday home owners turn communities into ghost towns, inflate prices in desirable areas (many of which are rural with low wages) and displace people who would live in the property full time.

Aibu to think this is selfish and reprehensible? Why are such people not villified for taking more than they need in such an extreme way?

It also galls me that but making a holiday home available to let for a certain amount of time each year the owners can avoid council tax and likely pay nothing using small business rate relief. The money from council tax funds some services which would benefit the owner regardless of how much they use the property. I think it's a loophole that needs reviewing but won't be.

Completely agree OP, but most people, ime, are selfish so what can you do?

But other people’s kids being able to afford to live close to where they grew up isn’t my responsibility, it’s for their parents to think about and plan financially for.

It's for the good of society as a whole that local children can grow up to get decent local jobs and local housing. It's bad enough that most decent jobs these days are centralised in London and other major cities, so often there's only low paid work left in some areas. But then they suffer the double whammy of local house prices being based on those London Centric decent job wages rather than the reality of the local job market. It's a mess and sooner or later it will have to be tackled.

Theres a lot of holiday homes in the Yorkshire Dales bought by rich people.
OP I bet if you had enough money for a holiday home you would have one though.

No I don't think it is at all selfish. There are plenty of properties for sale, what does it matter if some end up as second homes and the rest are owner occupied? I see nothing selfish about it and it is nobody else's business anyway. Many people have second homes, sometimes more than two and they are generous with them, allowing friends and family to stay there for holidays etc. My neighbours have one in Spain, they're retired and go there frequently as do their children and grandchildren. Someone else I know has a couple of places in Italy and they do the same, another in France and another in Cornwall. Not one of these people is selfish.

We live in London and have a flat somewhere else but my husband works up there part time so stays there a couple of nights each week. However when he packs up work we will use it for holidays because we like the area and will allow others to stay there at no charge. Everyone else in the block owns their flat and lives there all the time, we aren't depriving anyone of a home.

if you own shares and you buy and sell them then you are taxed. if you make a profit on them, you can be taxed. if you decide not to buy shares with your excess money but buy property, then you should be taxed. Its quite simple really. huge swathes of the countryside are being built on because of a so called housing crisis yet there are lots of properties that are completely under occupied. it makes no sense at all.

Around Barnard Castle and Middleton in Teesdale its absolutely beautiful and that's in the North East as well as Northumberland.

Comtesse, a lot of people didn't make a 'choice', in any meaningful sense, not to be able to afford to buy a house. And I don't really know what sort of 'planning' you can do to ensure that kids are able to afford to live close to where they grew up.

Actually @benadrylcucumberpatch there are parts of the North East that are increasingly popular for people to have holiday homes, particularly the Northumberland coast towns and villages (Bamburgh and Beadnell, to mention 2)

We also have huge amounts of student accommodation taking over the city centres and nearby communities, which takes away the affordable housing.

@Seren10 yes less noise which is lovely, but these properties should be lived in. We have a huge housing crisis in London and it's so sad to see these buildings just used as investments rather than homes. It also prices a lot of people out of the housing market because there's less supply.

London or other big cities, one expects to move away, not small rural areas.

I don't really see why its acceptable for city dwellers' children to be priced away from their families but not fair if it happens to people who live in tourist spots?

Why should people with money be restricted in how they spend it?

Why do people always assume that if we're against people owning second properties, that they leave empty most of the year, we are jealous?

There actually is a surplus of vacant properties. Holiday homes aren't causing the housing crisis. I say that as someone who can't afford one never mind 2.

There are plenty of properties for sale, what does it matter if some end up as second homes and the rest are owner occupied

It depends. If it's just one or two in a larger area then yes, it won't make much difference. But some areas really are 'bought out' by holiday home owners. Generally the typical 'holiday' type places (Lake District etc...) which means that local people struggle to buy property.

I can see how frustrating that must be when most homes are left vacant for the majority of the year.

The holiday homes we most often stay in wouldn't be ideal for most buyers of permanent homes - small seaside town centre with quite expensive parking a good walk away.

If people rent their holiday homes out as well as using them themselves, I don't see too much wrong with it.

Having said that, if I won a load of cash I'm afraid I'd probably buy a modest holiday home in our favourite UK seaside place and keep it for ourselves/family/extended family/friends, etc., so it'd be used a lot anyway.

I agree with whoever said that all the newbuild city centre flats, bought by overseas investors just as a safe place to park their (possibly dodgy) cash, and deliberately kept empty, is just as big a problem, if not even more so.
These are so often aimed specifically at overseas investors - and accordingly overpriced - so why they are given planning permission when this is going to be the case I can't understand.

FelicisNox I can't afford one house let alone two, and have issue admitting so. Your point is?

I agree op. I live in a pretty place, and increasing numbers of houses are second homes. It destroys a community. A few, fine, but there is a tipping point.
I live in a Welsh speaking area, which makes it worse. Also we have more and more English people moving here with no thought to our culture or language, they moan about the schools being Welsh...in Wales....in a way they would never moan in say, rural France.
Local people will eventually be priced out, by the holiday homes and the people selling up in Southern England.

would letting your holiday home when you are not using it really free some properties for the locals? I doubt it anyway.

Letting them as holiday lets at least generates local economic activity. People tend to spend more when on holiday and therefore carries some economic benefit. It isn’t without its downsides, particularly when you get a large concentration of holiday lets, but at least there’s a benefit.

A true second home left empty for most of the year drives up house prices without as associates benefit to the local economy.

But then there would be no self catering holiday lets, so only hotels? So do we stop all tourism too.

But other people’s kids being able to afford to live close to where they grew up isn’t my responsibility, it’s for their parents to think about and plan financially for

What a lovely attitude about society.

YABU. And jealous.

But other people’s kids being able to afford to live close to where they grew up isn’t my responsibility, it’s for their parents to think about and plan financially for

So you'll be providing the cash for your children's homes then yes?

WhenOneFacePalmDoesntCutIt
Well I have to move to an area with no family or friend community because that's the only place I could find a job, so I am keeping my holiday home thank you very much!

benadrylcucumberpatch
Face palm indeed... Where is the logic in that? Like.... What...!?

Well I can see logic in that. Presumably WhenOneFacePalmDoesntCutIt would love to live full time in "pretty village with friend community" but is unable to do so because the jobs are not available there to allow her to afford it. However, if she moves to "nasty, busy impersonal city" she can get a well-paid job but can't bear the though of living there all of the time so she makes her situation more bearable by having the holiday home in "pretty village with friend community"

Makes perfect sense to me.

I very much agree with you but if I won the lottery I'd still buy one. I'd like something so quiet even the locals wouldn't be local so perhaps this helps. I am aware that I'm a hypocrite.