to have little sympathy for this landlady facing a £20,000 tax bill

[cakeorwine]

You need to listen to the story

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0l91m83

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gegkxxlg3o

It sounds like she had 8 holiday lets in Blackpool. If a holiday let is not let for more than 70 nights a year, then it becomes classed as a second home.

Under a second home, she is liable for Council tax.
6 of these now seem liable for backdated council tax and she faces a £20,000 backdated tax bill.

Apparently landlords have been given a year to prepare.

She is worried about the tax bill and says that if she goes to the hospital, she hopes its bad news.

She also talks about famiiles who have come regularly to the lets.

But if the properties aren't being let for more than 70 nights a year, then they aren't very popular holiday lets - and should be occupied by people who need a home.

Maybe she should rent out some of the other properties to people who need a place to live in to pay the tax bill.

As an aside, it's also interesting to read the BBC article which does not mention the details of why a let might become liable for Council Tax payments.

Totally agree. She’s not the brightest button in the box but just because she was born at a specific time then managed to amass lots of assets / money

I think everyone may be misunderstanding the type of property this is. I come from a town that has (or had) lots of these “holiday apartments”.

They aren’t flats that you could live in. It will be like an old school B&B but the rooms will have some catering facilities. It isn’t purpose built. Think of an old house with big rooms where there is a kitchenette in a corner and a bit sectioned off for the bathroom. Or a bed sit in an HMO. There will probably be an owner’s flat in the building where she lives.

They couldn’t be sold off individually as they won’t have planning permission or meet building requirements to be separate dwellings. I don’t know about Blackpool, but often seaside towns have rules about not being allowed to let holiday apartments as residential apartments to protect the tourist trade. She would probably need planning permission for change of use but may not get it as there are often “hotel zones” where the council won’t allow change of use. They don’t want to lose tourist accommodation and they don’t want them to be turned into HMOs. TBF, I can also see why a 70 year old woman wouldn’t want to turn her home into an HMO. Certainly, where I came from, many of these properties have ended up as HMOs where most of the residents are men with drug and alcohol issues.

If it isn’t making a profit and needs updating, it will be hard for her to sell it as a commercial property. It may well be unmortgageable.

@EdithBond I agree. In NYC, for example, streets are zoned and Airbnb is illegal in areas classified as residential. I cancelled "hotel" accommodation I'd booked there after doing research and finding out it was an illegal operation. The people running it absolutely were banking on making more money than any fines they'd receive and had a free cancellation policy.

Generally in the UK we have a very laissez fairer attitude to business, etc and as long as people pay the necessary charges there is no intervention from the authorities.

This sounds worse if the places aren't capable of being lived in full time! Grim.

No, I’m not a hypocrite, any more than renters who want change are hypocrites.

The difference between me and BTL landlords is that I admit that I use property that I think should be regulated more effectively, for the wider good. But BTL landlords just want to make money by housing people with as few inconveniences to their income as possible.

Communist? 🙄

Very good point.. has this not occurred to the bbc... oh wait.. 🤦‍♀️

At what point does a place to let for tourists become a potential second home? It's not just based on the number of nights let but should also look at the property itself.

The headline is:

There are 8 apartments available. That's 8 x 365 potential nights available for someone to sleep in.

6 of them are only occupied for less than 70 nights a year.
And how about the other 2?

That is a lot of lost nights someone who needs a place to stay could be using.

8 properties all with less than 70 nights stay per year is not a viable business model. She’s obviously not putting through the accurate amount of nights so it’s her own fault.

I’m sure selling one of the properties will clear her tax bill. I wouldn’t be embarrassing myself by sad facing to the press about this.

Absolutely no sympathy here.

@KnickerFolder I get your point (and love your username!)

But if they’re tourist hotel or hostel rooms rather than individual flats, in a neighbourhood where council planning rules are that they should be used for tourists, then she’ll have to sell to someone else who wants to let to tourists.

Her business is failing if she can’t let for most of the year. Blackpool can attract many types of visitor throughout the year: summer holidays, winter breaks, weekends away, conferences and conventions, business visitors, a base (e.g. for walkers) to enjoy the wider region. She’s clearly not appealing to the widest market. She needs to view the competition and see what they offer and charge, work out what people need, e.g. modern facilities, good beds, good Wi-Fi.

If, like any failing business, she can’t afford to invest to make her business profitable after paying taxes, she’ll have to sell to someone who can. That’s the nature of business.

However, if residential conversion is allowed, large, self-contained studios in the centre of town can provide an affordable home to single people and couples, especially young people, so they don’t have to pay travel costs to get to work or go out. It’s nicer to have a self-contained bedsitter, with your own kitchenette and en-suite, than having to live in a house share.

Ultimately - she needs to look at her business and decide the best way to make a profit out of it.

And if she can't make a profit, then I am sure someone else could.

I am also sure that tourists could find elsewhere to stay as it seems the supply of such accommodation in Blackpool far outstrips the demand for it. Or else she would have more people staying in her accommodation.

Zero sympathy. She's running a business , it the business isn't profitable she needs to sell

As others have said, I expect she gets a lot of cash in hand type custom

Possibly grim or possibly not, some are, some aren’t, @Needtosoundoffandbreathe. Obviously, there are different rules about what is suitable as holiday accommodation and residential accommodation. If you are staying for a week, you don’t need the same space as you do to live in eg bunk beds in room 6 x 6 feet are fine for 2 DC on holiday but not to live in, you only need a tiny kitchenette if you are just cooking a few meals on holiday.

Here is a photo of the actual property from her website. They aren’t too small compared to some holiday flats but they are very outdated.

Properties like that sell for about £250k for the entire building. She can’t just sell some flats as they aren’t individual properties and I doubt she can sell the building/business. No one wants to buy them. They are white elephants.

It is a ballache to change them from business to private use though. I used to have a holiday cottage next door. In an old outbuilding of a farmyard, it took about two years to get planning permission and divide the property upon divorce as we agreed to split it. Informed the council and they couldn’t charge domestic rates until sale went through which incurred massive backdated bill of double council tax.

I have some sympathy for her. She isn't sitting on 8 buildings. She has one building, the size of a very large house and that building contains 8 miniature holiday lets. It doesn't look like one holiday let of that size would be a suitable permanent home for a family. So it's definitely not 8 permanent homes that she is hoarding.

I also don't think that running holiday lets is an unreasonable business for someone to have? They are very obviously not second homes so it does seem awful to charge her council tax as though they are.

Not sure why the hatred on this thread for her.

I suppose the best thing for her to do would be to sell the entire building, pay the £20k charge and move on. That would mean that these holiday apartments aren't available for people who have enjoyed using them and she no longer has income on which she presumably pays tax. Seems like everyone loses.

No hatred from me. But if you go into business or any sort, you have to see it as just that - a business.

If you can't even let the flats enough to meet the criteria as a holiday let then you have to face the music

It's a business not a charity

Given that there are lots of holiday apartments in Blackpool, then surely people would be able to stay in those - as it seems she is not the only one who has low occupancy rates.

It seems there is an over supply of such places if many of these places are saying they face council tax bills because of low occupancy.

Ultimately, I don’t think there is a way that she or anyone could make her business turn a profit. Air BnB and places like Travelodge etc have killed the already dwindling market.

There may well be plenty of other accommodation in Blackpool but if the local council won’t allow change of use, it will have to remain holiday flats.

Where I come from, the properties like this that are in prime positions have a lot of mysterious fires after sitting empty and derelict for several years…

Especially since she is saying that she has people (plural - suggest it is not uncommon) who are coming to her "holiday lets" eight or nine times a year and at £200 - 300 per week. As others have said, I simply don't believe that she can't let them out more, so either she doesn't want to, or the income isn't going through the books.

I think it’s possibly the ostrich effect which irritates. She will of had regular letters with business rates, rates relief explaining incoming changes and the requirement for proof of occupancy. It shouldn’t of been a shocker and there were probably ways to have restructured the business that may have required paying higher business rates.

The business has been structured this way initially to minimise tax. With changes in tax regimes you need to adapt your business. It does seem like it’s being run as a hobby to keep building going rather than a way to make profit.

I suppose yes, visitors to the area could stay elsewhere.

The council tax charge (well, the change in policy) has made the business unviable and it does seem a shame that the business has been taxed out of existence. And a pp has mentioned that the property is very hard to sell.

How many business will we be prepared to tax out of existence? Before we realise that businesses employ people and pay tax and we need them.

Well, I suppose the council could buy the property off the lady for £250k or whatever, she could pay the £20k charge and the council could do renovations to make it into suitable housing for people. It feels a bit like nationalisation though.

No, they are 2nd,3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th & 8th homes.
Anyway, greedy is as greedy does.

You know what else is interesting - and I don't see mentioned in the BBC article? According to their own website, the Proprietors (defined as the owner of the business, or holder of the property) is not even her - it's Tony and Tracy Robbins. So it seems that these flats are owned by / able to support at least three people yet they only have two of them let out more than 70 nights?

When it smells like the excrement from a male cow, it probably is.

https://www.westwardholidayflats.co.uk/

i privately rent and when I’ve been to seaside towns I always stay in b and b’s or farm cottages. I always feel for the private renters in the area and wonder how they manage to find properties when (and I’ve simplified the amounts) a long term renter family would pay £1000 a month for a property. Yet the landlord could air b and b it for £3000-£4000 a month 6-9 months of the year. granted there are more costs involved in air b and bing it. When the figures differ that much you can see why people do it.

Do you ever post anything that makes even the tiniest bit of sense?