Should people be allowed second homes?

[Soubriquet]

I’m not talking about those who have second homes to rent out, I mean ones who leave the house empty 90% of the year and visit maybe once or twice as a holiday home.

Surely it’s bad for the area to have so many empty houses that can’t be used as they are holiday homes especially if they live abroad and only visit once every few years. If ever

I’m also concerned that there is so much homelessness in this country that could easily solved by reducing the second home movement and allowing people to rent cheaply

So. What do you think?

@bootlebumtrinketti

No they shouldn't. Selfish and greedy.

How do you feel about those selfish greedy people who have a second family/car/dog/career/freezer/slice of cake?

@2bazookas but there is no shortage of cars, dogs, freezers or cakes. Environmental impact is a different argument.

And having two freezers but leaving one empty doesn’t adversely impact other people’s enjoyment of their freezers due to knock on impact on services.

2nd family? Not sure if you mean bigamy or something else 😂

What about those people who don’t live here but have 2nd and 3rd homes here

Several years ago, it was the trend for people to have a timeshare. It was basically, selling the dream of owning a property abroad.

I was on holiday in the canaries & there were flats for sale for 21K. However, I am not keen on going on holiday to the same place.
Instead I invested my savings in a small property in UK, paid off in full which included the renovations. I let it out immediately under market rate. I have not increased the rent.
It pays more than if I would have left my savings in a savings account.

I know a few people who have holiday homes abroad

For myself it was a sensible investment

I disagree with being greedy

I work for my money pay my taxes

@JackANackAnoreeee

It is a selfish thing to do to be honest, it drives up house prices and has a massively negative impact on the area with the empty home.

Saw a piece on Cornwall which touched on this. Second houses are destroying Cornwall. Remaining empty most of the year and preventing locals from ever being able to live there. Awful actually.

I don't think stopping the Smith's from buying a holiday cottage in the Lake District is going to do much to help homelessness.

Crazy idea to ban them. But they should certainly be extremely heavily taxed.

Whilst buying a 2nd home in Cornwall might not help the situation but I think Cornwall has other problems.

From what I have seen and read Cornwall has a problem with keeping people, especially young people in Cornwall as there just isn’t the industries to provide work.

Seasonal work just isn’t enough and if 2nd homes were disallowed I still don’t think there would be a significant uptake in people buying.
I come from a town in the North, that was during the very early 80s on a par with London prices. (Compared with some parts of London it was more expensive) with lower salaries.
It is still is a relatively expensive area so if you wanted a home you had to move. I don’t see how this is any different.
Whilst there wasn’t any or many 2nd home owners there just wasn’t the work or what there was didn’t pay enough to buy.
It was either rent or move or move further out and spend even money on commuting.

I know some people who live in Central London in flats or tiny houses who have second homes where they go pretty much every weekend with their children. They work very hard in corporate jobs and pay very high taxes. I don’t think they are being selfish, it is just a lifestyle they choose rather than living permanently in the commuter belt.
If you work 14 hours plus a day in the City of London this might make sense. I also know people with holiday cottages in the Lake District etc - where the whole extended family use the cottage so it isn’t empty much.
Many people in Communist Russia did have second homes called Dachas. Little cottages in the countryside for people to go to in the holidays away from the Soviet towerblock. You were not allowed to travel abroad.
I can see where this thread is going - Covid has prevented holidaying abroad and people who can afford it are probably buying more holiday properties both as an investment but also a reaction to Covid.
I think we still have enough land to build on for now. However, I do expect higher taxes on second homes in the future. I would limit foreign ownership gradually and I would impose a usage tax on second homes that are empty - a sort of additional council tax. In Switzerland, this is what many cantons do, it is called Eigenmiete. “Own rent” - you don’t rent it out, you pay a notional rent to the government so they are kept whole regardless.

Im one of this selfish people who has two houses we live in each 50/50 and I a have job that mean I work in both areas. When we are not in it our grown up children sometimes stay in it and we let a few friends stay in one. Both cost significantly more than the average UK 3 bed house price and one is considered expensive for the area (twice the price of an average 3 bed house in the area) so way outside the budget of most people living and working in there. Why do we own two? Firstly we had the money and what else do you do with it? We could have invested it but it wouldn't have given us as much pleasure and happiness as owning the two houses, the houses form part of my DH's pension/retirement plan. We love both areas and one in particular is a very much needed bolt hole for DH and this is very true: "Its a home, with their own things. They don't have to check in and out, pack bags etc. I can see why it's preferable", we leave clothes food and have a car in both we can take our dog its our home surrounded by our stuff. Of course its a luxury and I'm aware most people can't do it but we are lucky that we could do it. Both houses although rural have reasonably good infra structure which we try and support it we do all our shopping in our village shop/farm (which is more than some of neighbours do who live permanently in the villages preferring the supermarket in the local town) and encourage our family and friends to do the same, we participate in local activities and use the local garage for our cars so hope we're giving a little tiny back to our communities.
With regard to being "taxed massively" we paid higher stamp duty on the second home, we pay full council tax on both houses and we pay tax through our jobs, if owning a second home was made prohibitively expensive in the UK then we would have looked outside of the UK and made a contribution to another countries economy instead.

Schools suffer if a place is full of holiday homes - the number of pupils would drop away, schools become smaller, further to travel to secondary schools. Working from home more should change this but it will be a gradual thing.

@FiddlefigOnTheRoof

Crazy idea to ban them. But they should certainly be extremely heavily taxed.

Yes, this where I am. They also should be openly stated as the socially negative thing they are.

Second home owners are bad for communities.

if owning a second home was made prohibitively expensive in the UK then we would have looked outside of the UK and made a contribution to another countries economy instead I don't agree with offshoring problems, but undoubtedly this would be a better outcome for the UK as it would be one less second home here.

I don't feel it would be wrong to hammer second home owners with a tax of some sort. Then only those who really want the second home and use it or those that make money from it will choose to keep them.......... just read teh previous post.
There would be implications - only the rich could afford to own them but that's pretty much the case anyway in places like Cornwall.

@Quincie

They do, with extra stamp duty

Our children our grown up so the about schools point doesn't apply to us. Most people we know with second homes don't leave them standing empty 50 weeks of the year, (we are unusual that we live in our homes 50% of the year) they rent them out as holiday homes, most second homes are in areas that are popular with tourists and in fact need tourists for their local economy. I am aware that house prices are pushed up but with the significant decline in agriculture and other forms of employment in many rural areas places like Cornwall are heavily dependent on tourists without them local/regional economies really suffer. You only have to look at the news to see how badly many have suffered through the pandemic. So you can't have it both ways. Tourism bring money into the local economy, and it provides jobs (admittedly poorly paid ones but that is a separate issue from second/holiday homes). What is the solution?

Yes, the stamp duty tax I think it would be 15,000 on 500,000 home - I was thinking annual tax to support teh local economy, schools etc
Imv if you can afford half a million a one off 15,000 is peanuts.
Imagine the income from a 500,000 pound home in Cornwall if it is let all summer. 15,000 is not much.

Lots of second home owners on this thread

I think it is selfish, yes, but so are lots of things - smoking, owning more cars than you need, putting stuff in your neighbours' bins. It doesn't mean it should be illegal.

@picturesandpickles

if owning a second home was made prohibitively expensive in the UK then we would have looked outside of the UK and made a contribution to another countries economy instead I don't agree with offshoring problems, but undoubtedly this would be a better outcome for the UK as it would be one less second home here.

So you rather I made a contribution to another countries economy? Really? Thats bit short sighted. Our "first" home is in a popular tourist destination we have a holiday home village up the road where houses cost £2 million the owners and those who rent these homes make a huge contribution to our local economy as this village has grown so the number of bijou bakers, cafes florists and high end restaurants, our excellent local butcher who only sells local sustainable meat has seen his business increase dramatically, the wealthy attract their friends who stay in expensive hotels all putting money and employment back into our economy, local shops which were once closed are now opening up. These people employ gardeners window/house cleaners dogs walkers and other local tradesmen, thus creating more local jobs, intact its now virtually impossible to get a cleaner/gardener.

Do you think people living in small rural villages were living the high life before the boom in holiday cottages second homes? As. child I lived in a very small rural village in Devon most were agricultural workers living in tied cottages which were often very poorly maintained and their wives did unskilled manual work to make end meet or they worked in the local china clay mine where they were very poorly paid, most lived a pretty hand to mouth existence.

Your views are suspiciously communist/socialist. Most people who hold these views are jealous of wealthy people. At what point would it be unacceptable to you, if the Government could DICTATE how people spend their own money?

In Switzerland they have a 2nd home rule. Once more than 20% of the properties have been bought by 2nd home owners they can't build anymore homes. Those that are classified as being 2nd home are more expensive than those that are first homes (you have to live in the area full time / pay tax there). Primary residences are always allowed to be build but cannot be sold as 2nd homes

Perhaps they could do that in the UK