What disincentives could discourage people from buying second homes?

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What disincentives would work to stop people buying second homes?

Inspired by a different thread. It seems a number of people share my abhorrent of second homes.

I have seen the place I grew up turned into a ghost village by selfish idiots buying second homes. Now there is no local shop, no local school, no doctors surgery, no pub, no busses nothing. There were not enough people using them consistently for them to make money.

So what would make people stop killing local communities. Financial penalties I guess but how high? Wales has introduced a 100% local tax increase on second homes but it doesn't seem to be enough.

That is exactly the point I'm making about posters calling for wholesale banning second home ownership.
There is also the case of inherited property with no buyers. What do you do if you can't sell within an arbitrarily set time frame as pp suggested?

By and large the best schools or have the best behaved children are in middle class areas.
I still think you are from a middle class area and don’t have to worry about a lot of the reasons people send their children to private school.

High taxes added and not rented out as a business which is a very comfortable way to pay low tax on an extra income

Restructuring yes, but only to a certain degree.
Hotels and guest houses are usually more expensive and less practical for families. We can only afford one week away and have always used holiday cottages for both price point, more space and complete flexibility of space with a young family.
Where would these hotel and guest house rooms suddenly appear from?
Tourism income would definitely decrease.

Perhaps second homes could be limited to new build flats? It seems so strange that classic, heritage properties in the heart of a village or town are sold to people who are never there, or who airbnb them, while local families get pushed further out into new builds on the edge of town.

To be fair local communities are first and foremost killed by a lack of employment- encourage businesses and startups to start in villages and town which are decimated by unemployment.
Also work towards some semblance of metitocracy where the top 10% don't own 90% of the wealth.
Taxing second homes will not discourage the very, very wealthy - make sure there are less very very wealthy families by taxing them fairly and closing down all tax havens.

Cornwall - at least 30% of the Cornish economy is tourism and many of these people are renting out second homes. It’s not a given schools close at all and many businesses would suffer a lot. Holidaymakers spend more. Cornwall can revert to what it was and I no longer have any desire to go there. I suspect I’m selling up for what we paid 16 years ago. I find it overall unpleasant despite spending a lot of money with local businesses which exist for the holiday market. Enjoy the unemployment.

Taking St Ives as an example- most of the cute cottages that are now holiday let’s are completely impractical for modern family living-no outside space to play, steep and narrow staircases, no parking nearby. Probably fine in days gone by, but not so much nowadays.

Reports so far are mixed. There have been a lot of previous short term lets put on the market.

Some people see the council as opportunistic, happily taking the extra money but with no improvement of local services. Prices haven't dropped yet but have flattened.

In Highland Council area some previous holiday lets are large 4+ bed houses and therefore sit on the market for months as local families can't afford them or they are in really rural locations that don't work for most people.

The other concern is that people who stop using holiday lets or second homes will buy motor homes instead which already clog up the lanes and cause all sorts of problems.

Reduce the price? Seriously of course there should be allowances.

I dunno. The best way to find out if a family pr couple or single person would like to live in one of those cottages is to offer it to them for affordable long term rent ( or purchase price) .

Those are often the houses which can now only be used as a second home. Not many people would want to live permanently in a cottage with a bathroom up a different flight of stairs to the bedrooms and that costs a fortune to heat if there is an alternative available, but people will delight in it for a holiday.

Burn them out?

This is very similar to the system used in many European countries.

Where I live in Europe in an area popular with tourists there are several property classifications.

Primary residences can only be used as such - something common throughout Europe is the requirement for individuals to register their primary residence, prove that they actually live there for the majority of the time, and pay local taxes. Anyone not using such a property as a primary residence (NB - they are allowed to rent it to someone else who meets the criteria) risks heavy fines and the ultimate possibility of the property being siezed and sold.

Second Homes - i.e. properties that have been built specifically for second home ownership. Similar to above, owners have to declare where their primary residence is in order to own a Second Home. If they live in the Second Home for more than 182 days/6 months, that property becomes the primary residence by default (assuming that this amount of occupation is allowed - some Second Homes have a restriction on the number of days that the owner can occupy the property). Some Second Homes can carry an additional designation that allows (but doesn't require) short-term or holiday rentals, but the number of days might be limited.

Holiday Homes - purpose-built properties similar to Second Homes, but the difference is that these usually carry a requirement that they are rented out for a minimum number of days a year, usually through a registered rental management company. An owner cannot buy this type of home, use it a few weeks of the year and then leave it empty for the rest of the year - it must not only be offered for rental, but must also actually be rented out (so an owner cannot demand an unrealistic high rental that prevents the property from being rented).

Finally there are also properties, typically apartment blocks, that are designated as Worker Accommodation that are reserved for the seasonal employees of businesses such as hotels, retail shops, tourist attractions, coach and travel companies, theme parks etc. where there is a temporary, seasonal demand for accommodation.

Such designations would probably be impossible to place on existing properties in the UK, but something similar might be possible when granting planning consent for future developments.

You could introduce a system that restricts who may live in certain properties. Each house would have a banding, a bit like Council Tax. But it would be very difficult to introduce retrospectively

Jersey do something similar www.savills.co.uk/blog/article/355787/residential-property/jersey---qualified-properties.aspx

I like you OP!

I’d be thrilled if second homes were made VERY expensive. Also if it became no more lucrative to Airbnb flats here in London than letting them to full time renters.

basically I feel there should be an assumption that every home is lived in full time by permanent people, or be a proper taxed hotel type business.

@HavananananaPlanning does impose restrictions in Cornwall. An owner of a single house applied for permission to build 4 houses, a shop and a flat just a few doors down from us. All were designated for owner occupiers only. The Cornish want their money from developments. The development didn’t go ahead so the elderly owner is now just trying to sell the house but the pp is worthless.

Wales 70s/80s red sky at night
Your second homes alight🔥🔥

You don't say why the development didn't go ahead.

Was the planning application refused, or did the developer decide that there was not sufficient profit in it? Or was there another reason?

I don't envy second homes. I think noone should have 2 homes until everyone has one.

I don't envy private education. I think they are businesses not charities.

Morals, not jealousy

I didn't tell that specific poster they were envious. I said trying to stop second home ownership in general was politics of envy.

I still disagree. It's the politics of moral and concern for the majority over a rich minority.

Which national parks don’t have some kind of hotel, pubs with rooms, B&B, campsites or holiday parks near to them?

Yes there are Hotels in the towns but it is not easy to get planning permission for New ones away from the towns. I do not want to stay in a town.

Then that’s your choice. It’s not that the options don’t exist - you are just choosing not to use them.

Housing should take priority over holidays, anyway.