Anyone else in the South East worried about Andy Burnham bringing in a land tax?

[Beachbooks]

With it looking likely that Andy Burnhan will be the next PM, I was interested to see if anyone else in London / the south east were worried about potential tax raises specifically around the land tax rather than stamp duty ?

A lot of my friends who live locally are worrying that he will make the land tax for the South East so high in proportion to other areas of the UK that it will be financially very difficult to afford but then also extremely difficult to sell!!

BTW we have very standard house and garden but we live in an expensive area

Starmer and Reeves loved stirring up that envy based politics. Really bad and damaging stuff. They’ll be honest soon. Hopefully AB will be somewhat better but who knows with this property tax stuff.

The property bubble had started before Blair came to power in 1997. The 1996 introduction of “Buy to Let” mortgages whilst the Conservatives were still in power made it easier for higher-income earners to invest in rental properties. Housing construction also declined from 1990 onwards meaning less new properties available for an ever growing population - again this started under the Conservative Govt preceding Blair.

What is it you think Blair & Brown particularly did?

I was interested in whether it was more pronounced and it seems it was

Yes, the property bubble under Blair and Brown was significantly larger and structurally more severe than the one under the Conservative governments before them.

While Margaret Thatcher’s administration oversaw a massive, volatile property boom in the late 1980s, New Labour’s bubble lasted longer, drove house prices to much higher multiples of average earnings, and fundamentally changed the UK from a nation of homeowners to a nation of renters.

@EasternStandard in 2024 the Government statistics showed that almost two-thirds (64.5%) of UK adults own a property. We have not changed fundamentally from a nation of homeowners to a nation of renters!

Yes the Northern Monster! 🙄

Well that bit I did wonder about but the rest does seem to be the case that there was a bigger property bubble with Blair and Brown as pp said.

If you google which had a bigger property bubble it’ll come up.

It sounds like he’ll be worse
but we don’t know I suppose
He hasn’t actually confirmed much

@EasternStandard my point is that the bubble started before Blair came to power with the 1996 introduction of “Buy to Let” mortgages. What is the "rest" that you are talking about? If it is envy based politics, then surely "Right to Buy" in 1980 has to be the most obvious choice for that. Making it seem like people in council housing should be so envious of homeownership that they should buy their council house?

In 1990 you could buy ex-council houses in some parts of the UK for 15k, people will argue that Thatcher kicked off the "lack of supply" problem (which is obviously not the real problem") 1996, a property bubble? The last crash was just ending at that point we were nowhere near a bubble in 1996, maybe you could argue that that was the very start of this one,or that it goes back to the early 80"s and "Reaganomics", which Thatcher was on-board with but Brown and co. lit the touchpaper of a massive out of control bubble when they could have stopped it getting out of control.

https://www.ft.com/content/48d26910-4798-11df-a4a6-00144feab49a

No
the LVT doesn’t account for income

Interesting.

How is forcing people to take in a lodger, sell their home or go into debt because they cannot afford a substantial increase in tax after the goalposts have been moved, so they can be replaced by people who can afford to pay more, any different, in principle, from landlords evicting tenants to bring in new tenants who can afford the higher rent they want to charge?

As for the rest of your points, many pensioners are already paying taxes, and many people living alone in single-occupancy homes are still working. An annual jump from £3.5k to £8.5k would be difficult for most families, let alone individuals.

The rest - all the other words re the property bubble

The loose lending lead up to the 2008 crash, and the subsequent bail-out with zero interest rates is the main cause, arguing otherwise is just not sensible IMO.

Don"t think landlords can do that any more, and there isn"t a line of people looking to pay higher rent on basic flats any more so not really comparable.

Completely agree. Another popular narrative is that if you have a bit more than someone else, luck must have played a huge part in it, so you shouldn't resent a little redistribution for pretty much everything.

Take the TV licence, for example. People seem to like the idea of those on higher salaries paying more, based on their income, to reduce the cost for everyone else.

You've linked to an FT article about Gordon Brown and financial and banking regulation - I'm not sure what that has to do with a property bubble.

Property started to increase again in Q4 of 1995 and then increased significantly with the introduction of Buy to Let in 1996, peaking at the beginning of 2003. I still don't understand how Gordon Brown lit the touchpaper?

The damage will last for years.

Hard disagree.

blowing the biggest property bubble in history that would price future generations out of home ownership

Feel free to get the AI of your choice to fact check that. You may be in for a nasty surprise.

A quick bit of research answers your question

‘ Gordon Brown contributed to the UK property bubble by loosening financial regulations, fueling easy credit, and encouraging property speculation. While serving as Chancellor, his policies allowed lenders to offer large mortgages, which pushed house prices to record highs before the 2008 market crash.

Critics point to several key ways his policies stoked the housing boom:

1. Light-Touch Regulation

In 1997, Brown gave the Bank of England control over interest rates but stripped it of its banking supervision powers, giving that role to the newly created Financial Services Authority (FSA). This created a fragmented system that failed to monitor high-risk lending. Banks were allowed to lend recklessly, allowing buyers to borrow far more than they could afford.

1. Explosion of Buy-to-Let

The government allowed "buy-to-let" mortgages to grow rapidly . This let everyday people buy extra homes to rent out . These amateur landlords flooded the market with cash, competing directly with first-time buyers and driving prices up .

1. Culture of Easy Credit

Because his government focused on economic growth through consumption and borrowing, private household debt grew by over £800 billion during his time as Chancellor . This massive amount of borrowed money allowed buyers to easily bid up housing prices .

1. Stamp Duty Increases

Brown raised Stamp Duty rates several times while in office . Critics argue this tax grab distorted the market, making moving homes more expensive while locking more people out of the first-time buyer market .

The Result: Boom to Bust
The combined effect of these policies was a massive spike in property values. House prices more than doubled in the decade leading up to 2007 . When the global financial crisis hit, credit dried up , and the housing market crashed—falling by roughly 20%

It's their MO unfortunately.

Instead of creating the conditions for growth, it's appear to be planning a grab of future "wealth" (unrealised gains) to fund today's spending.

It won't end well.

Property started to increase after the biggest UK property crash up to that point! Of course it started to increase, the loose lending, bank failure and global market in MBS happened under Broon"s watch.

@KeepPumping I'm not saying that the Blair Governments did not have a role, but I don't think that the significant changes of the preceding Governments can be overlooked. All of it contributed to where we are today. It is impossible to cherry pick one particular era and lay the blame there!

The liberalisation of mortgage lending started in the 1980s. Building societies had a dominant position in the mortgage market by virtue of the corset on bank mortgage lending and until the election of the Conservatives in 1979, there was a formal Memorandum of Agreement between government and the building societies whereby they gave preference to first-time buyers and limited equity extraction. The Conservative government allowed this to lapse and lifted the corset on bank lending in 1980. Building societies held 80 percent of mortgage balances outstanding in 1980 and provided 78 percent of the value of loans. This rapidly declined as bank lending rose and made rapid inroads into the mortgage market. The 1986 Building Societies Act in turn gave societies the capacity to compete against banks.

So, you can't just pick from 1997! It is a whole series of changes and unintended consequences.

Yes I did that BBC survey my god it was Labour loaded.

Absolutely written to get make us stay, get more money from anyone who can and probably tax people.

Everyone is at it

I prefer to use lived experience, compare the price of a basic flat in 1996 with the same flat in 2006.