Is having a second home in this country ever justifiable?

[Zog]

Given the amount of houses that we are told needs to be built to keep up with demand? Are they a luxury that is becoming unsustainable, like cheap air travel?

people buy all the property where i live as second homes so we locals cant afford to buy!

Hear hear pointydog

Every time I see comments on this thread I feel motivated to post something.

Let's be honest, we have done the issue to death. I am pretty sure we have all stated our views, we all understand each other's point of view and we are going to have to agree to differ.

I feel very very sad about some of the attitudes exposed on this debate but it is time to let go.....

I am not going to get drawn in, but thought I should point out, Cloudhopper's tax info is not entirely up to date, from what I know. You can offset mortgage interest against rental income, you can run at a loss, but you can't claim that loss as an actual loss in your tax return. A loss becomes zero (you carry it over to the next year).

So you don't get the income tax back that you paid on the mortgage interest money. But you do get income from the rental, tax-free, as long as you don't make more income than you paid in interest and other sundries.

As NQC says. We still have what were then known as Schd DVI losses carried forward (basically mortgage interest not set off against rental income) in the years we let out two flats. There is now a cap on the number of years you can carry them forward to set against future rental income but not for older losses.

Thanks NQC for putting me straight so gently.

I was under the impression that this was the case. It is obviously more complicated than I had thought. I have done a fair bit of research into second homes, but I should learn to question and reference what I read better!

Sorry if I have got anyone's hopes up about the tax loophole, but I believe there are tax advantages if you are clever/well advised enough.

There are always lots of ways for the rich to get richer