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.

Ok, so assume they're all band A and you get a 75% collection rate. That's £17.2m minimum. Still not peanuts. I work in local authority finance and we would be delighted with an extra £17m (or an extra 1% of our expenditure budget) for minimal work.

I'm not making assumptions without data. I'm making assumptions with data. I have data on the amount of second homes and the council tax rate. I'm assuming a collection rate and I'm assuming a middling band. You said you think a lower band is more likely, with some argument to back that up (though no data) so I'm revising my assumptions.

I don't know about Cornwall council specifically, and what the local authority is doing. I was using Cornwall as an example for working out how much money the policy would bring in - I was surprised by how significant an amount it was. (It's possible Cornwall is an exception - I just chose it because it's been mentioned repeatedly on this thread).

Yes, if local authorities do nothing, the problem won't be solved. But they have a massive incentive to resolve housing issues because of the cost of temporary accommodation, and because housing is an electoral issue. And because they get funding from the government specifically to try to improve housing provision.

I don't think it's a case of either/or. I think local authorities will be doing both. They'll be collecting the revenue to help with the overspend, but they'll also be trying to improve the housing situation. I may be wrong - but I don't think you can argue that the money isn't worth having.

Interestingly, I found data on second homes and council tax bands here: https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/council-tax/your-council-tax-bill/council-tax-data/ - follow the link for second homes.

They do say the data isn't complete because they haven't linked second homes to council tax since 2013 so it's self-reported - but it's the best data we have and it accounts for almost 13,000 of the estimated 14,000 homes. It shows a total of 12,760 second homes. 2,286 are band A; 2,302 are B; 2,473 are band C; 2,232 are band D and 1,718 are band E. Band F is 911. (I stopped adding up after that because I assumed the numbers would keep dropping and using excel on my phone is fiddly).

So actually C is probably a reasonable rate to use - there are almost as many band D as band A.

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

The developer keeps coming back to ask the council for more leeway - ie to not build all the affordable homes they promised, but which was the only reason they got planning permission in the first place.

Sorry, developers pleading poverty is very common all over the country I assumed you would understand.

Ah yes, "developers pleading poverty". Poor wee souls 😆

Let me tell you the story of the development where I live. It's an old farm on the edge of the village that hadn't been touched since its previous owners died. The first phase of the development, with mixed social and open market housing, was built by a developer who is well known locally as an "interesting character". The council in their wisdom stipulated that the social housing be built FIRST. Those houses sat empty for 6 months - apparently ready- while we were in limbo waiting to move in. Apparently he wouldn't sign the houses off to our housing association because he was trying to lean on the council to force some concessions about something.

Finally we got our houses, and our LLs are housing association A. He then built the second phase of the development, and the social housing on that street is being managed by housing association B, because our HA refused to deal with the fucker anymore.

During this time he also bought our local pub and it sat empty for years while he tried to get permission to turn it into a dwelling. Finally he gave it up and sold it on, and it's reopened as a thriving pub again (providing me with employment among others).

Eventually, as he kept on getting thwarted, he sold the field behind us to Housing Association A, who are directly building 25 homes for social rent, and no more of the massive 5 bedroom colossi (most of them occupied by a single retired couple) from the previous phases of the development.

So, that's a resounding win for the council, the HA, and the people of the village.

Proof of how it is possible to get social housing built without the intervention of greedy developers. They don't need "leeway", they need to get fucked.

Your point is that they will now have 10+% for frippery?
good for them it won’t save the villages and towns. It might discourage second home ownership but that’s all.

I was with you until you mentioned newts - I stand with the newts! Their protection is being eroded and if we aren’t careful we will wipe them out. They don’t prevent development any more than people having houses on land to be developed into a new road do.

Second home owners should be taxed more, perhaps unless they have just inherited one and are selling it, as they may not have means to pay