Time to get tough on unoccupied and second homes...

20400keith

Homelessness costs the nation millions, apart from the distress to individuals. Maybe now is the time to use taxation to relieve the problem. My proposal...

Any second/holiday home should be charged at 5 times assessed Council Tax rate.

Any unoccupied home should be charged at 10 times assessed Council Tax rate.

Individuals with two or more spare bedrooms cannot claim single person Council Tax relief.

All property empty for more than a year will be listed on a Council website (bit of naming and shaming). Anything empty for more than two years can be subject to compulsory purchase at 50% of market value.

All profit from these measures is ringfenced to reduce stamp duty. The more property that changes hands, the more spend on DIY, decorating etc and a boost to GDP.

withabix

How about banning the homeless from smoking, drinking, gambling or taking drugs and pay their benefits in specific vouchers for rent, bills, bus tickets to the job centre and food?

Ridiculous suggestion???


So is yours.

Generali

Homelessness is rarely caused by the lack of a home directly. It is much more likely to be the indirect result of mental illness.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

You can buy a house for $10 in Detroit.

There are over 100,000 empty houses in Detroit.

Detroit has over 20,000 homeless people....

The OP is therefore pointless....

20400keith

There are people living in bed and breakfast accommodation in every town and city in this country. We are paying for it, and having people in B&B whilst there is property standing empty is a national disgrace.

If there's no housing shortage, why are housing waiting lists so long? And why are private rents rising?

A._Badger

Oh dear, another poster to whom the concept of private property seems entirely alien.

Zero_Sum

20400keith wrote: »

Homelessness costs the nation millions, apart from the distress to individuals. Maybe now is the time to use taxation to relieve the problem. My proposal...

Any second/holiday home should be charged at 5 times assessed Council Tax rate.

Any unoccupied home should be charged at 10 times assessed Council Tax rate.

Individuals with two or more spare bedrooms cannot claim single person Council Tax relief.

All property empty for more than a year will be listed on a Council website (bit of naming and shaming). Anything empty for more than two years can be subject to compulsory purchase at 50% of market value.

All profit from these measures is ringfenced to reduce stamp duty. The more property that changes hands, the more spend on DIY, decorating etc and a boost to GDP.

Then owners of said houses would just change their 2nd home to a holiday let & pay the lower business rates.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

20400keith wrote: »

If there's no housing shortage, why are housing waiting lists so long? And why are private rents rising?

There is a housing shortage.

Rents are rising.

But that's not the cause of homelessness....

If cost of housing was the main cause of homelessness, there wouldn't be any homeless people in a place like Detroit where houses can be bought for $10.

Zero_Sum

20400keith wrote: »

There are people living in bed and breakfast accommodation in every town and city in this country. We are paying for it, and having people in B&B whilst there is property standing empty is a national disgrace.

If there's no housing shortage, why are housing waiting lists so long? And why are private rents rising?

Its not the number of houses thats the problem, its the number of people

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

20400keith wrote: »

There are people living in bed and breakfast accommodation in every town and city in this country. We are paying for it, and having people in B&B whilst there is property standing empty is a national disgrace.

There are around 330,000 empty houses in the UK.

But most of them are in the wrong place for current demand.

Which is why they're empty....

Anyway, there's already plenty of cheap property in those places, if you want to live somewhere that nobody else does....

Zero_Sum

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

There are around 330,000 empty houses in the UK.

But most of them are in the wrong place for current demand.

Which is why they're empty....

Anyway, there's already plenty of cheap property in those places, if you want to live somewhere that nobody else does....

I've seen reports that put that figure around the 900,00 mark