Tax "townies" out of second home ownership

Graham_Devon

Good idea I reckon, but then I am bias! However, it is doing real damage to places like Cornwall.

The tax system should put countryside second homes beyond the reach of more people, according to the head of the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

Ex-poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion said "townies in the countryside" were "gutting" rural communities.

The CPRE president did not call for a ban on second home ownership, but told the Times he would make them "very expensive" through more taxes.

More than 165,000 people own weekend or holiday homes, the last census found.

The Times reports that Cornwall is the location of 23,000 of such homes.

He goes on to say "townies" are gutting local communities as they scoot down in their cars and scoot back in time for the 10 o'clock news on Sunday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21979039

Local councils are reigning in discounts when it comes to council tax. Though it would have been very difficult not to in light of people on benefits having to pay a share. You can only leave the house unoccupied for one month for instance before full council tax becomes payable.

Would make the story a bit better if Andrew Motion owned multiple houses himself

CLAPTON

I though we agreed that Devon has lots of cheap empty space and so all that's needed is for townies to build a cheap property on them.

win win
more council tax for Devon
more properties for Devon

however, I do feel London is massively overcrowded and so there should be a special levy on anyone living there that was not born there

win win for Londoners

Poppy9

Would you differentiate between people who buy a second home and those that inherit it. i.e. say a now Londoner inherits his childhood home on the coast from his parents and decides to keep it not sell as one day he hopes to move back "home"?

What about people who let them as holiday lets?

I live on the coast and there are many holiday lets and no doubt bolt holes. Not sure it hugely increases house prices here but some areas are quiet in the Winter but they would be anyway as it's raining and the coasts in wet, windy weather doesn't exactly entice locals out of their homes!!:rotfl:

Graham_Devon

Poppy9 wrote: »

Would you differentiate between people who buy a second home and those that inherit it. i.e. say a now Londoner inherits his childhood home on the coast from his parents and decides to keep it not sell as one day he hopes to move back "home"?

What about people who let them as holiday lets?

I live on the coast and there are many holiday lets and no doubt bolt holes. Not sure it hugely increases house prices here but some areas are quiet in the Winter but they would be anyway as it's raining and the coasts in wet, windy weather doesn't exactly entice locals out of their homes!!:rotfl:

Don't think holiday lets are classed as second homes. They are classed as lettings.

Poppy9

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Don't think holiday lets are classed as second homes. They are classed as lettings.

sometimes they are used as both!

citykid5

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Don't think holiday lets are classed as second homes. They are classed as lettings.

in cornwall they often are, we have a lodge in cornwall that can not be ocupied for more than three months at a time, but it is classed as a secound home. we used to get a 10% discount on our council tax.this year that has be abolished meaning a council tax bill of about £1100. i'm not moaning as i think it is right to pay towards local services. but i feel we only bring good to the local economy and as the lodge can not be used as a perminent residence doesn't effect local housing. it has been made more dificult to qualify for f h l rates relief now and as most of our type of lets are often rented in pooling systms by the site owners it would be very dificult to meet the fhl criterea

lostinrates

Many two home owners consider the country home the 'real' home and the city one the base for work.

It's interesting to see this in the country side alliance. In its earlier days there were rumblings about this that were squashed as it was recognised a lot of support for CA came from peoe with a foot in town AND country.

Fwiw, I am totally against any reduction in council tax for second homes, but I really do see areas where the 'in comers' or weekenders are the hand that feeds local businesses.

CLAPTON

It all simply clarifies that council tax is just that a tax and has nothing really to do with the provision of local services.

PasturesNew

I think one thing that's helped to fuel the "buy a 2nd house" mindset rather than the "buy a holiday home/caravan" mindset has been the ridiculously high annual rents. There's a caravan park near me where the annual rent (it's open 10 months of the year) is £6,000-£10,000. So that's £600-1000/month before you even visit it.

AlexMac

Difficult, this one. Agreed that its crazy that in popular areas, local families are priced out of their villages, but who's going to define 'Townies' if this comes off (which it won't). To take a case in point, our close Townie friends, having retired from stressfull public service jobs (no. I'm not joking- would you want to run kids or adult social services in an east end borough?) increasingly spend time at their west Dorset village cottage, and are about to sell up in London and trade up in the country. They are close friends with everyone in the village there, and have exclusively used local tradespeople to rebuild their wreck. They and their visitors have probably pumped £many tens of thousands into the local economy in the last decade- much of it into the 2 village pubs! They obviously aren't helping keep the already well-attended local school open as their kids are long grown up, but they help fundraise for it.

So does Motion want them to live out their golden years in the East End...? Or will they need a visa to relocate?

A._Badger

No, GD, you are not 'bias'. You are 'biased'.

Lord knows where this common howler sprang from but its consistent use on the web is driving me (even more) crazy.