Dh wants to buy a holiday home. AIBU to think it's an awful idea?

[flametrees]

Dh wants to buy a holiday home in a location we visit every year. At least once with kids and once alone.
We also visit other places though.
I cannot see any advantages to owning a holiday home there. Property is expensive for what you get.
We will have maintenance costs. The worry that it will be broken into when we are not there etc
Plus I think he will never want to visit anywhere else if he buys a holiday home there. While I enjoy the location it isn't somewhere I want to limit my entire future holidays to.

AIBU to think buying a holiday home is a really bad idea?

I have a holiday home for 20 years that’s looked after by my dad who who was born and brought up in the next street. Some years it used for perhaps 2 nights to one week, other years it’s used 5 or 6 time’s a year for a few weeks at a time.

I’ve just been told that I’ll lose my council tax discount next year as the council are doing away with solo person discounts. I’m not bothered by it.

My dad is getting on now and I’ve already decided that once he’s gone I’ll sell the house. I just wouldn’t want the responsibility of it under those circumstances despite friends and neighbours saying they’d take over the care of it.

You said something like 'if he decides to, he will buy it anyway'...I find this really worrying and disrespectful, surely decisions about buying property and where to holiday are taken jointly in a marriage even in the ine parent working and one staying at home set up? Does he think his contribution is more valuable than yours!?

We bought a holiday home in Spain a couple of years ago and found we had to spend nearly twice as much as originally planned to get a fully legal property in a good area. The online pictures get you carried away but it was important to us that it would hold value.

We had holidays 4 or 5 times around the area in previous years and have 4 interesting cities within an hour and a half’s drive, national parks, mountains, amazing beaches, etc. We work flexibly and have Spanish residency so plan to spend more and more time there as we get closer to retirement. We chose somewhere with good rental returns so that letting it for 6 weeks in the hottest part of the summer to largely Spanish tourists escaping the hot cities more than pays the annual costs, maintenance, improvements and a flight or two for our family. We make a point of taking a family holiday somewhere totally different at this time so we get to explore as well.

We have a network of reliable and skilled people based over there that we pay good rates to to be our eyes and ears, look after our guests etc.

We still have jobs to do every visit.

We absolutely love it and enjoy every visit. But I can see how, if circumstances were different, it could become a real bind.

“He also thinks I would spend the summer there with the kids and he would come for 2-3 long weekends”

As soon as the kids hit a certain age they will not want to be separated from their friends. Young teens have tons of their own stuff going on, they don’t want to spend whole weekends and holidays away with family.

I saw it with out friends who bought a camper van. Every weekend away, writing a twee blog about the wonders of getting out with your kids...within a year the kids were desperate to stay for football game / ballet show / somebody’s party / brownie event and real life took over, camper van abandoned on the drive until sold.

But TatianaLarina the OP doesn't want to holiday there, so it won't pay for itself in that respect. In fact, having the home might mean they can't holiday anywhere else especially if it's not a good investment to rent out.

You don't even like the area so why are you even entertaining the idea? You'd end up hating it. Have you actually told him you don't like the place? Why do you go there so much now instead of trying new places if you don't like it?
He also thinks I would spend the summer there with the kids and he would come for 2-3 long weekends
Sounds like he wants to get rid of you all for the holidays! Plus you do realise that the kids won't want to go when they're older? They'll want to be with their own friends. You'll probably end up there on your own, in a house you didn't want in a place you don't like!

How old are your DC?
Their holiday loves will likely change as they move into teens.
My parents have a place in Spain which we visited when DC were little and played on the beach but these days we never go as there are no other teens around and there is no independence possibility - we cruise now which works brilliantly with teens and means we get to visit many different places.

The whole idea of going to the same place all the time is just dull for me.

OP - are you me?
15 years ago DP talked me into buying an apartment in Spain. The idea was that we would have holidays there and eventually retire there. I do like the area, but it hasn't worked out like that.
We had to have a Spanish mortgage (and all the legal hoops that went with that), and we thought we'd pay it off with all the rentals. Ha! I doubt we've even paid a quarter, and the rentals have fallen off.
We have a Spanish bank account, we have to pay utilities bills, local tax, apartment building tax, insurance, and income tax on the money that goes into the bank account. We also have a cleaner who does the laundry, so that's another payment.
When we go there, twice a year now, although it used to be more, we end up doing maintenance for part of the holiday.
It also means that we can't afford to go anywhere else, except cheap camping holidays (which I like, to be fair) and I don't want that to be our only options FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES!
Just say no, OP. Let him buy it, if he's desperate. He can't force you on to a plane.

YANBU - the excessive number of holiday homes has absolutely ruined so many places because of the way they impact the cost of houses, opportunities for people to buy a starter home in the place they grow up, the destruction of any local employment except tourism and the sheer depressing neglect that happens when it isn't someone's main home.

In some ways it would make sense to buy a holiday home in a place you already hated, then help ruin a place you love.

Don't forget the ongoing costs. Community fees/service charges, local taxes, non residents tax, house insurance, utility costs. You'll also have to make a will to ensure you can decide who gets the property if one of you dies.

Last time we were there someone had superglued our locks in the seven weeks since our last visit, so we had to call a locksmith out. Apparently it's a trick employed by would be squatters to see if a house is empty for any length of time. Squatters are a big problem, once they are in it's impossible to get them out.

We use our villa many times a year and for long periods. I wouldn't have one just for occasional use.

When it comes down to it he will buy it if he decides to and then I will be nagged incessantly to go.

Holy cow! Even if our finances were separate, there is no way my DH would buy a house (or anything costing loads) if I had said no to it. If he ever did that, I guarantee you I would never ever use it however much he nagged.

Your husband’s dreams were mine. With a few surprising twists they came true for me and it’s all I could have wished for.
BUT I’m a bit horrified by the resignation in your post. You don’t even like the area! You have to have a frank talk with him and say you will not be spending all your holidays and summers there, and if he buys it knowing how you feel, it will make you reconsider your marriage and your dynamic as a couple.
I think holiday homes are usually a bad idea, for all the valid reasons others have given above, but the idea of it is so beguiling.
No doubt you feel a bit trapped by the fact that your DC adore it too, - that’s a consequence of you being too passive in the planning process and letting him drag you all off there for years in succession. Don’t teach your children that daddies make the important decisions and good mummies facilitate it because their happiness is their husband and children’s happiness. Tell DH it’s your turn choose where you go next time and depending on your DCs interests, pick something like a Neilson holiday that offers loads of activities and a knockout destination that isn’t in Spain. If the children whinge about not going to X, tell them it’s not disappeared, it’s still there to be visited in the future, but there is a big beautiful world to explore too.

Listen to Alan Bennett’s “Nights in the Gardens of Spain” on Audiobooks. It’s brilliant. Most of it is totally irrelevant to your situation but one element definitely isn’t. Don’t be Mrs Horrocks!!!

We have a teeny cottage we use loads as it is only an hour and a half away from us in one of our favourite places. We are able to go a lot as we only work part time and can go for a few days at a moments notice. We let to friends very cheaply to cover the cost. We also have a camper van and go on several holidays abroad. I wouldn't ever buy one abroad as we tend to go on cruises and city breaks and long haul and tend not to go to the same place.

A friend of mine has an apartment in Alvor, Portugal. She makes a packet as it's rented out for most of the year. She goes there when she can and has a trusted cleaner/manager with whom she's in regular contact with. It's worked out well for her and she sees it as a retirement home for part of the year.
I get what some people are saying about holiday homes being a liability and also the moral side of pushing up property prices. I live in a holiday area and it's hard for locals to buy affordable housing.
That said, never say never, do your research and maybe you'll find compromise.

For the price of a holiday home, you could have an amazing around-the-world year out or a bloody good holiday each year. I particularly like the idea of a holiday investment fund.

My parents actually built a house in France (to be close to Grandad). They kept it for 10 years before selling it. Whilst the home itself broke even after the sale, the maintenance, admin and stress was not worth it..

Your husband is being carried away by his friends. Sit down and have a very clear conversation about how averse you are to the idea. And then plan to travel somewhere else next year.

"If I'm honest I don't even really like the area that much."

Why do you go twice a year, then?
Your husband sounds like a bully.
Presumably he's pushy about other decisions too?
He's a high earner and you're a SAHM?

We own a holiday home in Spain. Our plans etc have not turned out.
We planned to make money on renting- that’s didn’t work out. Spain has brought out new laws with regards to this so not easy really.
Flights have gone up, which made it more expensive to go. We did go from 2 to 4 during the time though, so with school holidays we couldn’t just nip away. So it sat empty a lot of the time costing us money.
There’s bills to pay regardless if you’re there or not. Community charge if it part of a community. Council tax, basura (bin collection) and there’s more I can’t think of at the moment. There’s also a new tax that I haven’t got my head around yet.
15 years we went there on holiday. Don’t get me wrong, I do love it but it was a long time to go to the same place.
We’ve put it up for long let now so someone lives in it and we went somewhere different this year.
I guess I’m saying, if I had my time again and know what I know now, I wouldn’t have wanted to buy it x

AnotherEmma
“Your husband sounds like a bully.
Presumably he's pushy about other decisions too?
He's a high earner and you're a SAHM?”

That’s my reading and fear too and it’s making me twitch.

OP you are not secondary, your preferences are not secondary. You get one life, we all have to make compromises and are progress through it is bumpy, but this is seriously unbalanced.

Inheritance isn't particularly complex in Spain (I live there and have done so for 20 years), you just can't disinherit children if your will is as a Spanish person, although if your will is made as a Brit you aren't bound by that.
What is complex is renting it out legally and paying taxes on that. You'd need to pay someone to do all that as you need to file 3 monhtly tax returns whether you make any money on it or not.Some places will require you to get a ermit to rent it out, these can be hard to get. If you rent it out illegally there are massive ossible fines, like 20,000€ fines.
So, you'd need to pay someone to do maintenance, cleaning and paperwork on it if you were to rent it.
Also, Brexit. It would be madness to buy a holiday home right now in the EU as a Brit before you know what brexit will mean for that. We have no idea how it will affect citizens rights, travelling and so on.

I was literally having this same conversation with oh last night, you’ll have to visit this place every fucking year, multiple times and pay for upkeep

Airbnb is your friend! Stay in someone else’s home for a couple of weeks! Let them pay to maintain it!

I would sit him down and explain that you are a partnership with a family, and that it's vital that you BOTH are happy with where you holiday regularly. His chosen spot isn't it for you. You dislike it. You certainly don't want to spend more time there than you already do. But you would perhaps be willing to look elsewhere?

TatianaLarina the OP doesn't want to holiday there, so it won't pay for itself in that respect. In fact, having the home might mean they can't holiday anywhere else especially if it's not a good investment to rent out.

By pay for itself I meant won’t actually cost them money to run.

So they buy elsewhere. It’s not rocket science to buy a property with a good existing or potential rental income. See CasaIsa’s post above.

We had this argument. DH was relentless about getting a holiday home, and sort of bullied me into it, by going on and on about it. Its in the uk not abroad. We didn't use it enough. The kids hated it. I liked the place but it was not close enough for a quick weekend visit. We now rent it out.

What is complex is renting it out legally and paying taxes on that. You'd need to pay someone to do all that as you need to file 3 monhtly tax returns whether you make any money on it

As per the double taxation agreement you can choose to pay tax in Spain or U.K. It’s not hard to keep a spreadsheet of rental income.

I would strongly advise against taking out a mortgage to buy in Spain. Rentals are by no means guaranteed, and many people find they can't raise the income they expected from rentals to pay the mortgage.