Second Home owners doing sad faces in the press about council tax increase

[CornishTickler]

Just read an article online about the second home council tax increase and there are couples with sad faces saying it was without warning and is against their human rights! It wasn't, its been in the press and talked about by councils for over a year. It wasn't a surprise, areas with high levels of second homes knew it was coming.

I for one am glad about the tax. Our village has been destroyed by second home owners for years. A lot are badly maintained and empty for 80% of the year.

The argument that they bring extra income is also misleading. Most true second home owners who only visit a couple of times a year don't contribute much to the economy but are very vocal in interfering in local issues to the detriment of actual residents. One example (I'm not joking on this) was to oppose the planning of a local business that would benefit the community with jobs and tax revenue because of the endangered newts! luckily common sense prevailed but honestly they got very vocal and aggressive about it. It was mainly because they didn't want it to impact their second home.

Holiday makers bring revenue. Absentee second home owners do not.

Hopefully the second home tax increase will increase council tax revenue and help to support our community and vulnerable people.

DH and I are from families that had second homes. That is, never rented out either for holiday, or residential use. I actually do think those that are rented out can contribute to the economy if fully occupied. It was absolutely lovely for us to have second homes but I honestly cannot see how we benefited the local community at all. That is even with employing caretakers, cleaners and gardeners. It does surprise me that people claim this and take issue with the increased council tax.

Residents, living and working in the area, make a greater contribution in many different ways. They also employ cleaners and gardeners, frequent the pubs and restaurants and buy their presents for family and friends in the gift shops. This isn’t something only second home owners do. I would say though that builders, plumbers etc. can benefit from the situation as the small cheap cottage/house gets extended and completely renovated/upgraded. It will never again be affordable for most locals.

I live in an area very popular with tourists and holidaymakers. I feel that they are the ones who really provide the massive seasonal boost in our economy. That’s why bad weather has such a negative affect because they are less likely to choose to holiday here. Even if our families still had their second homes I would feel okay about the extra tax and be happy to contribute to it. I am glad to see that some posters don’t seem to resent it either.

When we marketed our own old cottage home we told the estate agent that we wouldn’t sell it to be a second home. He did say that people were often not honest about their intentions! We sold to people that have lived there for many years now. I don’t dislike second home owners and know many lovely people that are but I do think that too many isn’t good for a community.

Yes I agree. I prefer self catering myself because I hate having breakfast in a restaurant. We do one meal in or picnic and one meal out everyday.
more fun this way. And when I am on holidays I love cooking special dishes and I always shop in independant businesses and at the market - mind you i dont holiday in thr UK so fruits and veg are easily accessible outside of supermarkets

The trouble with second homes is that home is denied to someone who may want it as their only home. It’s awful that a young person can’t buy a home in the area they grew up in because they lose out to some moneyed up city dweller.

Growing up, decades ago, I absolutely could not afford to buy my first home in the area I grew up in. Not because of second home owners, but because it’s just an expensive part of the UK (not London). I moved away for more affordable housing. I survived and actually I did better on the property market buying in cheaper areas.
What I didn’t do was have an expectation that I SHOULD or MUST be able to buy a property where I grew up. Nobody owes me anything, I am responsible for myself. It was expensive, I couldn’t afford it. So be it.

Except that only about ten percent of "empty" (ie not permanantly inhabited) properties belong to second home owners and only a fraction of those belong to people outside the area of the "empty" house.

The notion that all these properties belong to moneyed up city dwellers is not borne out by the facts. In most rural areas they are more likely to belong to people from within the area.

There is also no right to buy in the neighbouring street to your parents for anyone. Most of those hated Londoners moving to Herts etc are doing so because they cannot afford to buy in the communities they come from and face ever longer commutes. The blocks of empty "investment" properties in London make most areas' second home ownership look like peanuts.

Outside of cities people move for work far more than property prices. You can put 500% tax on second/holiday homes and it won't magically conjure up the regular full time work needed to get a mortgage or a decent tenancy agreement.

Yes I like the sc option

been away this week and was glad to go back “home” and make food when I’d been busy in the daytime

YADNBU op
This was long overdue and doesn't go far enough imo. We have the ridiculous situation in places were the tourists are in the houses and the locals are living in caravans.

Prices are only high if that’s what the sellers are demanding. Any local could refuse to sell to outsiders/second home buyers and sell more cheaply to another local. They don’t. They want the higher price. You can’t have your cake and eat it, moan about there being no homes for locals, but want the higher price offered by outsiders.

Prices are only high if that is what buyers pay.

I’m not sure if you are really not understanding what I’m saying, or just trying to close this discussion down. Apologies if it’s the latter.

The price of anything is up to the seller, not the buyer. Any seller has the right to accept or refuse any price they wish. If locals are so keen that locals should have access to homes in their area, they can choose to forego the additional cash that would be paid by someone else (an outsider/second home purchaser) and sell to the local instead for less money. They invariably choose to take more money instead, but then moan about the housing market for locals. It’s hypocritical.
Understandable, but hypocritical nonetheless.

A seller's decision is usually based on how much they need to buy their next property! Unless everyone is philanthropically going to drastically undercharge for their homes people really need to sell for a sensible going market rate in order to afford their new place.

Even people who are downsizing to a smaller cheaper property might want to give some money to adult children to help them buy a home somewhere, a house may be being sold to pay for residential care. It not as simple as implying that sellers are being unnecessarily greedy and it's all their fault if house prices are too high.

The problem everywhere is a lack of social rented accommodation, there are over 6 million households in Britain who will never be able to raise a mortgage and buy a house. Government needs to find a realistic way to fund that, possibly by raising a tax on the massive increase in the value of land when planning permission is granted. That would reduce the cost of new builds and make it much easier for councils and housing associations to afford to build what is needed.

Near me in Cornwall there are smaller developers going out of business because they cannot afford to build the affordable housing element of their development. We have people who have patches of land they want to donate to be used to build a small number of homes for local young people, and they can't find anyone who will construct them.

Upping council tax is like putting a sticking plaster on someone's amputated leg, it will most likely do nothing meaningful to improve access to housing for the lower paid in pretty rural areas.

I'm in Devon and my council has imposed this too. Great, but more social housing to rent is what's really needed.

I live in a quite nondescript, slightly 'period', terraced house in a mildly deprived town; the surrounding areas can be touristy and there are a few purpose-built holiday homes in the area that second homers could buy if they fancied.

But the house next to me has been owned by second-homers for the past 10 years. I assumed they might retire to live there, but no. They come less and less and their family and friends aren't too interested in coming either and I don't blame them; it certainly wouldn't be my first choice for a holiday. A family home in the cheapest area of the district stands empty most of the time.

I think they actually keep it through stubborness, besides council tax they have utility bills, insurance and maintenance to pay for but they are aware of my views on 'second homes' since they put up their over-high fence that blocks a great deal of my afternoon and evening sunlight. I can't afford the 'process' to get them to lower it. They grow no plants in their fully paved south-facing garden with a shed that stores ??, unlike me who teases plants from every garden oriface.

They add zero to the community and are just another black hole tearing the final shreds of any remaining community spirit apart and I'm sure I'll be moving out before them.

Completely agree. We have far too many homeless people without homes being left empty 80% of the year

In our popular Welsh coastal village 'locals' sold their old, cold, damp and drafty sea front cottages to 'óutsiders' wearing rose tinted glasses about living next to the sea, aand all the constant maintenance and hard work it involved. The rose tinted outsiders though these houses were worth a fortune, and the locals were only too happy that the outsiders bid up the value among themselves.

The locals moved to the near by town, where all the jobs are and where prices were normal for the area, but there were many many new cars and holidays at the same time. Old cold money pits were swapped for cost efficient new builds, close to the amenities that the village never had. In the end the old Victorian primary school had to close, but with outsiders buying it for a small fortune, the council built a brand new school in the new town, with all brand new classrooms, sports facilities etc. The same happened to the doctors. All those who used to drive to an old doctors in the next village now walk to a brand new health centre in town.

The outsiders soon found out what it's like in these old houses and set about renovating them. The local builder has never had it so good and now employs more trades than ever before.

The old shop got replaced by a posh boutique for the outsiders and the pub became a 1* restaurant. The old village really busy in summer, but there no shortage of summer jobs for our children and their friends. Out of season it's nice to go to those places. Places that never existed before the outsiders came. Don't tell anyone, but they all have 'locals' discounts out of season.

Overall everyone seems to be a winner, but if you listened to one of two 'hard of thinking' types, this is now how it's all reported/seen

I’m sure I have read this before somewhere.

Council tax to them is surely like what 10p is to most of us. So just pay it?

Near me in Cornwall there are smaller developers going out of business because they cannot afford to build the affordable housing element of their development. We have people who have patches of land they want to donate to be used to build a small number of homes for local young people, and they can't find anyone who will construct them.

Have they tried contacting Cornwall Council, who have put an active call out for small building plots of land like this? Or the housing associations like Coastline, who are currently building 25 houses in the field behind me?

Maybe where they're going wrong is by talking to the organisations whose job it is to make a profit from selling houses, rather than the organisations whose job it is to house people? 🤔

Cool story bro 🙄

In every small town there's big fish and mostly these are/were the local landlords that would rent to the local workforce that kept the local industries going that the big fish owned.

Since most local industries no longer exist and property prices have gone berserk,everything has gone out the window in logical terms - the local landlords are gone, the main industry is 'adult social care', yet not everyone wants or is capable of wiping old arses for a living and it doesn't pay enough for the local rents on the rental properties that don't even exist.

That's what happens if you put the £ first.

For balance, Blair built bugger all council houses & Starmer wont say how many of his 1.5m mythical houses will be for social rent either.....

I gather that Starmer's government has so far provided funding for 18,000 socially rented/ part ownership homes. Which isn't nothing....but isn't 1.5 million either.

Yes, of course. They keep coming back asking for more leeway. The council are telling them 'You said you could do this, you promised you would be better than the big guys, so get the fuck on with it!'

There is so much naive crap on this thread, from people who don't have the first clue of what the real issues are (oh yeah, let's ban people from owning more than one property and that will solve the housing crisis 🤦‍♀️) I feel quite impatient and cross having been working in this area for nearly 10 years.

Which facts specifically have I got wrong?

We are lucky to have a small flat in a holiday town. This was bought with an unexpected inheritance. I felt I wanted to do something good with the money and not leave it in a bank. We are there a lot and spend a lot of money in local places. Our grown up children also use it. I feel the double tax is unfair as we use less local services than a permanent resident. Only rubbish collection really. We will probably sell it as the unfairness does not sit right with us. The town has not got a housing shortage so unsure how this will benefit the local economy.

Its not a simple as here is the money build the houses. Property companies and will sit on land for a number of reasons. Private company profit does not always mix well with building social housing.

I think a lot of older people understand perfectly well actually. We have grandchildren and are not totally divorced from the rest of society.