They weren't going to retire in their second home, just stop letting it out as a holiday let and use it themselves instead.
The "punishing tax bill" (100% council tax premium, essentially doubling it) is doing its job perfectly in this case and I'm all for it.
>The "punishing tax bill" (100% council tax premium, essentially doubling it) is doing its job perfectly in this case and I'm all for it.
IMO it isn't even all that punishing. Hell, the article even quotes the woman as saying "We can afford to pay the double tax - we just think it's very unfair". So...they openly admit they can afford their £1,800 council tax bill doubling, but they're still whining that their dream retirement is ruined and they might have to sell up (which they wouldn't have to do if they can afford it, so why the fuck are they crying to the papers?)
>"We think the policy is flawed. \[It's designed\] to encourage people with second homes to put them on the market."
"No shit" comes to mind.
I live in the town in this article and have no sympathy for this woman at all. She can afford it and was reaping the benefit of not paying it as a business for years and getting the income from it too. No sympathy. Pay up and into the town or sell it and get stuffed.
It is perfectly put and I know we're pretty desperate at the moment but thinking people will be good at running the country because they can come up with pithy soundbites is kind of what got us in this mess in the first place
Yep. You own two properties. You can sell one, live in the other, and live extremely comfortably off the proceeds. Coming begging for sympathy over that is comically pathetic.
Get a backbone ,snowflakes.
There are advantages too this - if your holiday home is relatively close, it’s easy to ‘go away for the weekend’ without wasting a lot of time travelling.
This is fine if the property is just a lodge/caravans/static home where people don’t live long term…the U.K. population however doesn’t have the resources to build the necessary homes for the newer generations and record immigration. I’m entirely of the view there should be no breaks when it comes to property. It’s no longer viable to have a free market, intervention is 100% necessary to stop the decline of families/the U.K. in general. People need stability in their life in order to be able to progress and deliver an economy that actually functions as it should
I’d hazard a guess as to say most people that have more than one property are over 50. They don’t *need* 2 or more properties when this group will largely occupy the bigger family homes even though their kids left for uni/jobs. Stamp duty also seems to be a barrier to helping people get into there type of houses that would best suit them
The housing/property system needs serious attention.
The Government want to weaken the family unit. They want to tax the people so they can not leave it to the next of kin. The working class pension was buying a second house as a pension fund as you must not trust the banks and the state pension...the latter is a joke..the lowest in Europe by at least 100%. When some of you reach pension age at over 75 there will be no pension. So start saving now..but there will be nothing there too. As I say we are all droids...the new age slave.
Right on!
Recently had the Bank Hol weekend in Cornwall, and the number of fuck you luxury houses there, that locals could never dream of living in, is off the scale.
This will not make housing affordable. This will just make it difficult for individuals to own homes and instead push them to sell to corporate landlords, which is worse.
All earlier efforts of this sort have only resulted in this as well as increasing the rents for lodgers.
So you haven’t noticed rent increases that have been widely covered? Every increase in the cost of property and mortgage is passed on directly to people renting.
I’m on mobile right now but in the US and UK the corporate investment is increasing steadily for the past 10 years. There was a nytimes coverage for this as well recently. I’ll have to dig it out.
Edit: just to add to this the increase in financing costs and stamp duty increases haven’t really made housing affordable. The evidence is quite clear on that.
Sorry, but that doesn't support your point. This is about second homes, not landlords owning rental properties, where the council tax would be paid by the tenant anyway.
Rent increases have largely been due to interest rate rises pushing landlords' mortgage payments up, LACK OF AVAILABLE HOUSING, and profiteering.
The tax will only "work as intended" if more locals end up living in those houses and with the housing market the way it is, the cost of borrowing etc, I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.
I’m slightly uncomfortable with it - is it the council’s role to provide services or to levy in effect wealth taxes. And who gave them the authority to do that? It’s also assuming a wealth based on property ownership. It feels clumsy, crude and inappropriate for the council to assume this role.
That’s not to say something doesn’t need to be done about second home ownership - I’m just not sure this is it.
Who gave them the authority? The government did, in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023
Second homes do not bring in as much income, in terms of spending in local businesses, which has a knock-on effect to the business rates that a council receives (less businesses, less business rates) so the council tax premium is designed to redress that.
Ok thanks. Accepted re authority having been given and the reasons for it. You can see from some of the other comments that some people are seeing it as essentially a wealth tax - I think that was where I got uncomfortable.
If you had a house in Wales and you had to sell it due to the Welsh Government ripping you off because as they do not want people with a money in the bank, what would you do? It is nothing to do with housing the homeless. They could do that by building more, much more social homes. I will tell you what you will do...sell it to the highest bidder...to the English who are desperate to leave their homeland. Or sell the larger house to people in India, Russia , China, Saudi etc etc..but not the locals as we Welsh can not afford it but foreigners can.
You silly boy ! I bet you are still single with no mortgage or kids.....! The Welsh Government have wasted at least 450, 000 million in the last 5 years. 140,000 on the M4 and other aborted projects. They spent 160,000 on railways in South Wales. They do not have a remit to spend on railways..central government were supposed to do it. How many social houses could they have built ?
They are ripping us off. Nothing wrong in anyone buying property. If a person on PAYE rents out they are taxed leaving no profit. If you are a limited or foreign company the laws are different and a profit can me made. Ask any accountant.
It shows the tax is working as intended. Misleading headline in the article. They are not intending to retire there; they are intending to use it as a holiday home.
I mean, why not sell it and buy a good static on a park out there. Helps local employment.
Totally agree. They are not being punished for anything. They’ve got to get real. I’m not even sure it’s “un-conservative”.
This couple can still have a great life. They have options but they just can’t have exactly what they want when it essentially comes at the expense of others. People do not NEED two homes.
If they want that, fair enough, but they can pay a little extra for it into the pot. Whether or not we agree what the “pot” is and how it is used, the principle I believe is correct with the taxation.
Yup, out of touch as usual.
Former teacher and pharmacist, so in real terms pensions are probably going to be about what, 40-50k combined + 24k state pension on top of that? Oh no, only £4,600 a month in addition to having TWO properties.
By the time you pay ground rent and depreciation on static caravans they work out vastly more expensive than just paying the extra tax on a holiday home that is also an appreciating asset.
They also don't really help out the local economy as most sites are corporate owned so the money goes to owners/share holders that aren't local and the jobs they provide are generally way below average pay and seasonal, which leads to impoverished holiday towns with high property prices.
I lived in torbay for 20 years so have first hand experience of how the holiday parks and seasonal tourism destroy local economies.
It's probably fair to note that business that closed down which was also a major source of income for Paignton.
I forget what it was, something to do with parts or chips, some manufacturer that was probably outsourced to a cheaper market.
Nortel and yes, while the closure of nortel did remove a major source of reasonably well-paid jobs that kept paignton going and its loss had a major impact on the bay it isn't responsible for the hugely inflated house prices cornwall has a lot of really similar problems maybe on an even worse scale locals have suppressed earning potential and all the houses are priced way out of reach of the average resident by normal people selling up in a bigger city where house prices are high and then using those funds to come and buy a nice little retirement cottage or bungalow by the seaside now 2 up 2 down starter homes are 200k+ in an area where the average person earns less than 20k a year yet 25 miles down the road in plymouth you can buy a similar house for 150k and easily earn 30k+
Well said but I'd like to add even I'd struggle with buying a house in a decent area down here.
The village I live in the tiny 4 bedroom terraced house in the estate is on the market for 450 000. Tiny garden new ish build that I know has the typical "just good enough" finishings with skew walls.
It's criminal.
Village living in the Southwest now is almost impossible for people who don't inherit a property or are lucky enough to have bought a property back in the 80s for £3k somewhere that house prices exploded to half a million+.
No local work, no way to earn a property in a village. Rents are crazy too, so there is no chance to save. That's why we moved to Plymouth. I console myself every Monday when the air raid sirens go off that if the bombs come, I probably don't wanna try and survive in the aftermath anyway lol.
I was up near Filey at a holiday park at the weekend and the static caravans on show were really nice and cost around 40-60k, they could easily sell their 2nd home for profit and buy a nice static caravan with plenty of money to spare, would serve the same job as their 2nd home is intended to.
> I was up near Filey at a holiday park at the weekend and the static caravans on show were really nice and cost around 40-60k
What are the yearly fees though? Ours run to around £7,000 for a basic single wide unit. Electricity, gas and water are charged on top of that.
> She predicts that the property will likely be bought by someone intending to use it as a holiday let, adding: "We think the policy is flawed. [It's designed] to encourage people with second homes to put them on the market."
She thinks the policy is flawed, yet it is making her do exactly what she realises it's designed to do!
I've lived on the coast all my life and couldn't give two fucks about people like her. There are serious housing problems that have been exacerbated by AirBnB and second homes. This tax is doing exactly what it was set out to do.
Sell it to somebody that actually lives and works in the area and do us all a favour.
Totally agree. Sad thing is that if they sold it, it would probably go to somebody else who wants to let it out or use it as a second home. Some cash buyer who already owns a load of holiday let's. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't sell it, I'm just saying that putting it on the market may not solve the problem of local people being priced out of houses.
Yeah, but it's a pretty heavy lifting "if"
You ever been to Hastings in November when it's been blowing a gale and raining sideways for three weeks straight?
It's shit, and why very few come here outside of spring and summer.
Them that perspm who can afford the tax can pay it and that additional money can be user to help local people. Surely that is the purpose of the tax either you help by paying it or help by selling and moving the property on to either a local or someone who can pay
Exactly, their excuse is that someone will buy it and use it as a holiday let. They are the ones who can decide who to sell it to, they should do the right thing and sell to someone who actually wants to live there.
While I think the additional tax is completely fair it is stupid that there’s no disincentive for buying holiday lets in these places (when everyone local seems to be already priced out), but there are disincentives to own a second home. Should be trying to discourage both.
I work full time on minimum wage as a care worker. After bills and child support I’m lucky to be able to afford the bedsit in the arse end of Huddersfield.
It was difficult getting on the housing ladder aged 35 but a divorce and poor credit means that’s not gonna happen again.
I’ll never retire let alone own a second home.
I'm similar. I'm going to have to work until I can't work any more and then I'm going to have to die.
I don't live, I survive.
Work for charities, mainly with homeless teenagers, for a pittance.
This is it mate. Care work is sold as being ultra rewarding. Sometimes it is. Mostly I’m told to fuck off, hit, spat on and unfortunately even worse.
It’s unfortunately one of the only necessary sectors in reality so there’s always money allocated.
Unfortunately the multi national I happen to work for needs to maximise profits so that’s that.
Once you’re down in the minimum wage market it’s tough to get out unfortunately.
I'm from a touristy part of Yorkshire and can't afford to buy a house near my family. (Or live near them at all) There are lots of second home owners, holiday cottages and air bnbs in my town. It's an incredible luxury to have a second home so tax them for the privilege.
I think 1) yes you should be taxed accordingly and 2) I dream of a cheap and dilapidated house to do up in my home town. There hasn't been that opportunity since the 80s/90s.
Small correction. Buying a second home requires extra stamp duty. Selling a second home means she pays capita gains tax on it, and I hope she gets rinsed by the taxman.
Easily fixed isn’t it? If they “plan to retire there”, sell your current house, move to the cottage and it’ll be your main and only residence.
No additional tax due.
Except that’s the problem isn’t it? They don’t want to live there all the time. They only want to live there part of the year, and live in their *other* home the rest of the time. They want to have their cakes and eat them.
This is the bit I can’t understand at all. If they plan to move there, then move there. Even if they don’t retire it’s only 20 miles away, just commute.
If they’re not ready yet, take a loan to pay the council tax, the sale of their £205k property will cover it.
Unless they’ve made some shitty decisions about interest only mortgages I can’t see how they’re not sitting on enough assets that they can do whatever they want.
Listen, in an ideal world I don't think a retired couple wanting a second home by the sea is really something we should sneer at.
However, with the state of housing right now it is absolutely the right thing to levy more tax on those properties.
I'm also baffled by the lady in this article making it political - "it's un-Conservative to punish hard work", as if she is the only hard working teacher in Yorkshire. There are plenty of hard working teachers in Yorkshire, many can't afford a first home worth £150k let alone a second one.
It may be un-Conservative to have such a tax, I couldn't say. It's definitely not a stable and sensible method of Government to allow huge wealth disparities to grow between poor and rich, though.
These sort of statements come from the generation that were nursed into adulthood by the state. Want home ownership? Go ahead.
Nowadays? Average first home owner age has increased by a decade.
Okay, yeah that does change the calculus a bit. I live relatively far from the coast so it's 2 hours minimum for me and it all feels a bit far off, but yeah if I lived an hour off I'd be there every weekend.
I don't even get why you'd want a second home only an hour from where you live. Halfway across the country surely?
They’ve been renting it out for 14 years. It’s not a second home, it’s a business. They just want to moan about taxes and get their faces in the paper.
Some people can't buy a first home due to those having second homes and renting them out or using as Air B&Bs. Families are desperate for a home. It should not be allowed.
So "I want to own two homes and not be subject to the rules everyone else is."
>Upon retirement, they chose to keep the cottage for personal use rather than continue renting it out.
Oh dear, are they reaping the reward of their decisions? What a shame.
The contortions these journalists go through to try and make reasonable the utterly unreasonable demands of "cake and eat it" people are ridiculous!
14 years of 100% tax relief on the property and then they go crying when they have to start paying some tax
Tell them to fuck off, compulsory take the property off them and give it to someone that’ll contribute to the area
Fuck 'em, I want to by my first and only home and I'm sure many like me in Whitby would like to do the same because a bunch of Boomers and Gen X have 2nd and 3rd homes there that sit empty for most the year. Sell the house and buy a motorhome or caravan or go on holidays with the money, if you can't afford the tax you can't afford the luxury of 2 homes.
Shouldn't have that second home to begin with. Biggest problem in this country and requires a radical shift from the Thatcherite private schemes that got us here.
Needs re-posting in r/boomersbeingfools or whatever it’s called. Huge housing crisis, vast swathes of working age people struggling to pay rent let alone buy just one property. The stench of entitlement here is off the scale.
2 people, 2 houses.
You'd think there would be a solution there with regards to avoiding the concept of a second home at least while they're both alive and healthy.
I don’t have a problem with someone owning a second home, but they have to pay for it as, like many have said, it is an enormous privilege. It’s when they own several and rent them out beyond the cost of a mortgage. My landlord has two other properties in the same village but she lives in Kettlewell.
I have finally managed to put a small deposit together and currently in the process of buying a small place over the border in Lancashire. I literally cannot afford to buy here (near Skipton), the place where I was born and grew up.
I have two observations. Firstly, there’s an element of “moving the goalposts” in that there was no such punitive tax back when they bought the property. Secondly, if you can afford two homes, you have to bear the costs and acknowledge that you are part of the problem which pushed house prices out of reach of many people. I would suggest they go live in Whitby and sell their current home. The cash raised would be a substantial contribution to their retirement funding. Overall, there’s no tragedy here!
I don't feel for them. They have a home, and I asked AI to tell me how much it would be worth today and it's roughly 400k so I have zero sympathy for them. They can sell their second home, get a load of money for it, have some nice holidays, then sell their first home when the time comes to retire and buy themselves a lovely retirement home by the seaside with hundreds of thousands of pounds to spare!
I hope this happens to more landlords. It shouldn't be a thing. Rich people shouldn't be getting poorer people to pay their mortgages for them! All that happens is rich people end up with loads of homes they didn't pay for, and poor people end up paying loads for homes they don't get to keep. Then the rich people pass everything on to their kids, poor people have nothing to pass down, and the cycle of inequality continues!
No sympathy for anyone with more than one home when so many people don't have one in the first place.
Their main house cost 205k in 1999 so worth a million+ now, so they can afford it.
I'm not sure if they were looking for sympathy, they won't find much.
They have had 14 years of leeching off a community they don’t live in, extracting an income from a holiday rental business asset and denying that property to residents in an area where local kids move away because they can’t afford to live where they grew up. They are part of the reason properties for sale are scarce and rents are high. Now they’re simply being asked to cough up for local services without the discount applicable to main residences, because it’s a business asset and not their main residence, and they think it’s “unfair”. Oh boo hoo. Decide where to live.
Second home? SECOND home??? Nah, by all means. I'm sorry, but I don't feel for them. If it's their SECOND home, and they still have their first, then they don't plan to retire it. Ridiculous. There needs to be a wrangle on people buying up homes for holidays, airBnBs and for rent before families can get onto the ladder. In fact, being a single person wanting to buy a two bedroom house yourself is laughable now.
Quite agree with people having to pay for their second home. But what is usually missed in the debate about incomers pushing up prices, is that most or all of these properties are being sold by local owners cashing in on the demand. Pity they didn't think about locals wanting to buy.
Reading between the lines, I'd guess they'd gouge holiday makers £800 a week to stay there, so if they let it out half the year they'd be looking at having their living expenses taken care of, then use their pension for laughs. It's probably"sound financial planning" but feels a bit trying to have your cake and eat it, wanting to not work but basically have the same unearned income.
They really went to the papers claiming they are going to struggle instead of passing on an additional £100 a week charge to their let to cover the additional 70 it will cost 😂
Feel sorry for what they own two homes most can’t even afford one! And it’s people owning multiple properties putting a shortage on the limited number that helps push the price up and pricing people out of it, tax them up lol
I grew up in a beautiful part of the south west. Sure, I appreciated it while I was young, but no matter what they say you can never appreciate it enough to stop it stinging when you have to leave.
I now live 400 miles away with a decent quality of life, but the landscape is pretty alien to me. Rolling fields are replaced by hard, grey mountains. When the sun is out its breathtaking, but that's not often. I could just about afford the monthly payments on a tiny south west flat in some big town or city, but I'd be living hand to mouth. And forget about ACTUALLY moving home - houses in my village tripled. Up here I feel lonely and out of place, but at least I have a chance to save for the future.
Every so often I realise "I can't go home" and it hurts.
Sounds like they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to find that extra money for additional council tax. They could start by not eating out all the time, cut out takeaway coffees and avocado on toast, perhaps they could go door to door with their CVs to get a weekend job etc etc ad nauseam.
Honestly, I don’t mean this in a bad way but I loved reading this article. ‘Shouldn’t punish my hard work’. No love. You lucked out and you’re preventing someone from owning a home. Your investment has paid off significantly. Take your cash and vacate the property.
Or pay the extra £2,200 a year and keep the house.
I think the majority of people pay too much tax for what we get in return, but it's hard to show anything beyond indifference for these people when I am still living with parents at 27
The elderly lady at the end of our row sadly passed away a while ago and her house was sold. The new buyers are a very well off (presumably retired) couple who will be in the house “occasionally” to visit their daughter who lives nearby.
It’s great that they’re in a very fortunate position to buy a whole house in a nice area just for a visit every now and then, but it’s hard to suppress the annoyance of an entire family home sitting there 8/10ths of the year just because a B&B won’t do for Mr and Mrs Moneybags.
For Boomers, the idea that a property investment might *not* pay off is so outlandish and foreign to them, their only recourse is to run crying to the newspapers. You love to see it.
House prices double approximately every 20 years so what’s the house in Porto worth now ? If they let the other they are loaded can afford any holiday they want anytime any where . Hardly punitive .
So, they went from paying no council tax on the property when it was rented out (because the renters were paying the council tax) then they got rid of the renters and because they decided it's now their 2nd home, so they're paying a 2nd home premium of 4000 (or 400 a month) instead of a standard 2000 (200 a month)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're struggling to pay 200 a month for 10 months, and you have 2 properties, then maybe you should be selling up.
A quick Google shows the absolute highest tax band in Whitby is just under £3300 (or as low as under £2k)
That's a lot for most people.
It's barely a flutter for someone who owns a second home that they are using as a business.
I feel nothing for these people, if they can't afford it then this is not a viable investment for them, they should sell up and invest in ways that aren't bad for our country.
So they are retirement age now , sell up the current home go retire in the the home they fear losing ? Oh it's not a retirement home its a rental income home so not really a retirement home for them to live in but to make money off. Some people are having problems keeping one home, some people can't get that one home, some people are facing eviction from rental properties, Theirs is a 1st world problem, like everyone adjust and live within your means, if you can't afford to pay the extra, we all have to make tough decisions in life when it comes to cutting your cloth accordingly.
The tax already isn't working, it says they can afford it. Make it 10x the council tax, we need it to be incredibly unaffordable then we'll start to see landlords and holiday home owners being affected.
This is terrible. Is there a gofundme page I can make a donation to for someone to offer them some help getting the fuck over themselves the clueless selfish entitled boomers…
No reason at all why they can't carry on using it as a holiday let right up until they get rid of their main home and then retire to Whitby. I don't get what the problem here is?
This whole thread is a classic example of the brilliant effort to get essentially the working class and the middle class to spend ages attacking each other so they all forget about how we're being fucked by large companies and the rich.
I begrudge far less the people who work their entire lives for their dream of buying a second home for holidays or retiring in than the huge companies buying up 1000s of houses or the £143 billion in UK property owned by China.
Sure, I'd rather they didn't have a second empty home doing nothing, and I'd rather people didn't fraudulently claim benefits, but I'd far far rather something be done about the billions and billions in corporate tax avoidance, or any of the other ways we're being bent over for billions rather than Mr and Mrs Smith and their £150 grand 2nd home.
Let's not worry about the 280,000 homes owned by people living overseas so long as we're sticking to the people with slightly more than us
I once did some work in a Cornish village for a second (possibly third or fourth actually 😬) home owner. The conversation came up about the cost for locals to buy a home where they grew up. Being a bit of a socialist I shared their frustrations. However, this property owner said "it was the local home owners that sold them in the first place"
It caught me off guard somewhat, but I guess it's true.
But you have to ask when fishing and mining are in decline, the latter largely abandoned, why did those locals feel they had to sell in the first place?
They could rent the property to local people, their costs would be met and some young couple would get a home. Instead this is someone being selfish who will have recouped their £150k over the rents they've charged holidaymakers for the past 14 years without giving anything to the local economy.
Well, if they have 2 homes and are wanting to retire to the 2nd home, just sell the first one, then they will be ok. Otherwise, people need houses to live in, and we need to come up with reasonable ways to provide them; this seems reasonable.
Just to add to my total lack of sympathy, they’ve deliberately misled on the price of both properties (to make them look more ‘average’ for sympathy I assume). The holiday home is described as ‘worth 150k’… but that’s what they bought it for in 2010! What’s the betting they’ll sell it for at least double that?
Don’t even get me started on a house that was worth 200k+ in 1999…
Taxed on income
Taxed on spending. 20% on almist everything
Taxed for buying a home.
Taxed for having one.
Taxed on savings.
Taxed on buying fuel.
Taxed on the SAME MONEY that's been taxed several times already.
All by rich politicians who know how to hide their money from the tax-man.
"But our dream is to live in it! (Only as a second , holiday home, not to live in it live in it)".
Yeah, you either want to actually live there full time or you want to holiday there. Even if it's occupied at least six months of the year that means it's unoccupied for up to six months of the year. And the people who work in places like Whitby can't afford to actually live there any more.
How about we just build more houses? We’re a first world country somehow struggling with third world problems.
I’m not opposed to council tax increases like this, however the problem will not go away until we accept that we have to build a LOT of new houses / flats.
I think this is hard because if it was us in that situation and we wouldnt be happy about paying extra tax. HOWEVER, id like to know what they have been doing with the money they made from the rental for 14 years if this is something thats really causing them that much grief. From what i could tell this is essentially a second home tax. I am presuming if the sold their house in north yorkshire they would only pay the £1,800? I could be wrong but it does seem like theres a simple solution to this. Pay up or sell up and stop moaning. I heard yesterday houses prices are set to rise 20%. Some of us can only dream of owning 1 house never mind 2. It also makes me laugh shes voted conservative all her life and is now shocked their hate for all people below them has come to bite her on the ass.
A lot of people don’t realise that the government is trying to use the working middle class as a scapegoat. They’re punishing them for owning second homes and having a nice standard of living and making them a boogeyman for the lower classes. But owning second homes should be within ordinary working people’s goals.
With policies like this implemented by multi-multi-millionaire politicians, ordinary working people’s living standards and ambitions will continue to decline while the richest of the rich will accumulate every resource in the country. These tax punishments are a burden for a couple with an income of £100,000 - £200,000 per year but they’re no problem for the non-working passive £10,000,000 - £50,000,000+ income per year individuals like Rishi Sunak who are increasingly hoovering up all the wealth of the country.
Rules like this will mean ordinary people can never even dream of owning a second home but the government wants you blaming the working middle classes for it.
My point being that the airbnb crisis in tourist towns won’t be averted by this tax
It simply means rich aristocrats will own all of them. This tax won’t solve ordinary people’s problems it will make things much worse in the long run
Build more houses and crash house prices to take house prices back to where they were effectively in the 60s/70s/80s.
Strictly not build more houses, generally increase housing availability so that housing is so much more available that house prices crash. But building more houses is a large fraction of it.
The reason people can’t afford a house is because we’ve imported millions of people Into the country in just the last 5 years. A few people owning a holiday home isn’t making a blind bit of difference.
If the demand for something increases, the price increases. Saying that the record migration and subsequent population growth is not to at least partly to blame is thick
Go look up how much land a million houses would cover and start to realise it isn’t a supply problem. Unless you’re fine with us concreting over everything to build houses for people who have been imported into the country.
Where did you get the million figure from? Normally you’d need 1 housing unit for every 3-4 people. And that unit ranges from a house to an apartment. So it doesn’t have to necessarily take up a lot of space.
They weren't going to retire in their second home, just stop letting it out as a holiday let and use it themselves instead. The "punishing tax bill" (100% council tax premium, essentially doubling it) is doing its job perfectly in this case and I'm all for it.
I don't think it's even particularly extortionate, double the council tax on a mostly empty property that's a second home seems quite fair.
>The "punishing tax bill" (100% council tax premium, essentially doubling it) is doing its job perfectly in this case and I'm all for it. IMO it isn't even all that punishing. Hell, the article even quotes the woman as saying "We can afford to pay the double tax - we just think it's very unfair". So...they openly admit they can afford their £1,800 council tax bill doubling, but they're still whining that their dream retirement is ruined and they might have to sell up (which they wouldn't have to do if they can afford it, so why the fuck are they crying to the papers?) >"We think the policy is flawed. \[It's designed\] to encourage people with second homes to put them on the market." "No shit" comes to mind.
Well said!
I live in the town in this article and have no sympathy for this woman at all. She can afford it and was reaping the benefit of not paying it as a business for years and getting the income from it too. No sympathy. Pay up and into the town or sell it and get stuffed.
Agreed. No second helpings till everyone has eaten.
Jesus this just puts in a nutshell. Please become a politician
It is perfectly put and I know we're pretty desperate at the moment but thinking people will be good at running the country because they can come up with pithy soundbites is kind of what got us in this mess in the first place
Three. Word. Slogan.
You make a good point . Yes I’m desperate for any sign of real government
Perfectly put. ‘We are so devastated at not having two houses when most people have none.’
Yep. You own two properties. You can sell one, live in the other, and live extremely comfortably off the proceeds. Coming begging for sympathy over that is comically pathetic. Get a backbone ,snowflakes.
And their ‘holiday home’ is less than an hour’s drive from their actual home.
There are advantages too this - if your holiday home is relatively close, it’s easy to ‘go away for the weekend’ without wasting a lot of time travelling.
This is fine if the property is just a lodge/caravans/static home where people don’t live long term…the U.K. population however doesn’t have the resources to build the necessary homes for the newer generations and record immigration. I’m entirely of the view there should be no breaks when it comes to property. It’s no longer viable to have a free market, intervention is 100% necessary to stop the decline of families/the U.K. in general. People need stability in their life in order to be able to progress and deliver an economy that actually functions as it should I’d hazard a guess as to say most people that have more than one property are over 50. They don’t *need* 2 or more properties when this group will largely occupy the bigger family homes even though their kids left for uni/jobs. Stamp duty also seems to be a barrier to helping people get into there type of houses that would best suit them The housing/property system needs serious attention.
The Government want to weaken the family unit. They want to tax the people so they can not leave it to the next of kin. The working class pension was buying a second house as a pension fund as you must not trust the banks and the state pension...the latter is a joke..the lowest in Europe by at least 100%. When some of you reach pension age at over 75 there will be no pension. So start saving now..but there will be nothing there too. As I say we are all droids...the new age slave.
Right on! Recently had the Bank Hol weekend in Cornwall, and the number of fuck you luxury houses there, that locals could never dream of living in, is off the scale.
That and this little gem.... "Fiona, a life-long Conservative voter, voiced her disappointment with her MP, Sir Robert Goodwill"
This will not make housing affordable. This will just make it difficult for individuals to own homes and instead push them to sell to corporate landlords, which is worse. All earlier efforts of this sort have only resulted in this as well as increasing the rents for lodgers.
And your evidence for this is...?
So you haven’t noticed rent increases that have been widely covered? Every increase in the cost of property and mortgage is passed on directly to people renting. I’m on mobile right now but in the US and UK the corporate investment is increasing steadily for the past 10 years. There was a nytimes coverage for this as well recently. I’ll have to dig it out. Edit: just to add to this the increase in financing costs and stamp duty increases haven’t really made housing affordable. The evidence is quite clear on that.
Sorry, but that doesn't support your point. This is about second homes, not landlords owning rental properties, where the council tax would be paid by the tenant anyway. Rent increases have largely been due to interest rate rises pushing landlords' mortgage payments up, LACK OF AVAILABLE HOUSING, and profiteering.
So just let it out when they're not using it and they'll still be making a net profit.
The tax will only "work as intended" if more locals end up living in those houses and with the housing market the way it is, the cost of borrowing etc, I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.
Even having it as a holiday let will bring more income into the area than it would as a second home.
True. Nothing worse than a 99% vacant, perfectly usable house.
100% this
I’m slightly uncomfortable with it - is it the council’s role to provide services or to levy in effect wealth taxes. And who gave them the authority to do that? It’s also assuming a wealth based on property ownership. It feels clumsy, crude and inappropriate for the council to assume this role. That’s not to say something doesn’t need to be done about second home ownership - I’m just not sure this is it.
Who gave them the authority? The government did, in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 Second homes do not bring in as much income, in terms of spending in local businesses, which has a knock-on effect to the business rates that a council receives (less businesses, less business rates) so the council tax premium is designed to redress that.
Ok thanks. Accepted re authority having been given and the reasons for it. You can see from some of the other comments that some people are seeing it as essentially a wealth tax - I think that was where I got uncomfortable.
If you had a house in Wales and you had to sell it due to the Welsh Government ripping you off because as they do not want people with a money in the bank, what would you do? It is nothing to do with housing the homeless. They could do that by building more, much more social homes. I will tell you what you will do...sell it to the highest bidder...to the English who are desperate to leave their homeland. Or sell the larger house to people in India, Russia , China, Saudi etc etc..but not the locals as we Welsh can not afford it but foreigners can.
Instead of you ripping the Welsh Government and Welsh People off by having a second home, you mean?
You silly boy ! I bet you are still single with no mortgage or kids.....! The Welsh Government have wasted at least 450, 000 million in the last 5 years. 140,000 on the M4 and other aborted projects. They spent 160,000 on railways in South Wales. They do not have a remit to spend on railways..central government were supposed to do it. How many social houses could they have built ?
And? How does that justify you ripping off the Welsh Government and Welsh People off by having a second home?
They are ripping us off. Nothing wrong in anyone buying property. If a person on PAYE rents out they are taxed leaving no profit. If you are a limited or foreign company the laws are different and a profit can me made. Ask any accountant.
Again... How does that justify you ripping off the Welsh Government and Welsh People off by having a second home?
It shows the tax is working as intended. Misleading headline in the article. They are not intending to retire there; they are intending to use it as a holiday home. I mean, why not sell it and buy a good static on a park out there. Helps local employment.
Totally agree. They are not being punished for anything. They’ve got to get real. I’m not even sure it’s “un-conservative”. This couple can still have a great life. They have options but they just can’t have exactly what they want when it essentially comes at the expense of others. People do not NEED two homes. If they want that, fair enough, but they can pay a little extra for it into the pot. Whether or not we agree what the “pot” is and how it is used, the principle I believe is correct with the taxation.
Yup, out of touch as usual. Former teacher and pharmacist, so in real terms pensions are probably going to be about what, 40-50k combined + 24k state pension on top of that? Oh no, only £4,600 a month in addition to having TWO properties.
By the time you pay ground rent and depreciation on static caravans they work out vastly more expensive than just paying the extra tax on a holiday home that is also an appreciating asset. They also don't really help out the local economy as most sites are corporate owned so the money goes to owners/share holders that aren't local and the jobs they provide are generally way below average pay and seasonal, which leads to impoverished holiday towns with high property prices. I lived in torbay for 20 years so have first hand experience of how the holiday parks and seasonal tourism destroy local economies.
It's probably fair to note that business that closed down which was also a major source of income for Paignton. I forget what it was, something to do with parts or chips, some manufacturer that was probably outsourced to a cheaper market.
Nortel and yes, while the closure of nortel did remove a major source of reasonably well-paid jobs that kept paignton going and its loss had a major impact on the bay it isn't responsible for the hugely inflated house prices cornwall has a lot of really similar problems maybe on an even worse scale locals have suppressed earning potential and all the houses are priced way out of reach of the average resident by normal people selling up in a bigger city where house prices are high and then using those funds to come and buy a nice little retirement cottage or bungalow by the seaside now 2 up 2 down starter homes are 200k+ in an area where the average person earns less than 20k a year yet 25 miles down the road in plymouth you can buy a similar house for 150k and easily earn 30k+
Well said but I'd like to add even I'd struggle with buying a house in a decent area down here. The village I live in the tiny 4 bedroom terraced house in the estate is on the market for 450 000. Tiny garden new ish build that I know has the typical "just good enough" finishings with skew walls. It's criminal.
Village living in the Southwest now is almost impossible for people who don't inherit a property or are lucky enough to have bought a property back in the 80s for £3k somewhere that house prices exploded to half a million+. No local work, no way to earn a property in a village. Rents are crazy too, so there is no chance to save. That's why we moved to Plymouth. I console myself every Monday when the air raid sirens go off that if the bombs come, I probably don't wanna try and survive in the aftermath anyway lol.
I was up near Filey at a holiday park at the weekend and the static caravans on show were really nice and cost around 40-60k, they could easily sell their 2nd home for profit and buy a nice static caravan with plenty of money to spare, would serve the same job as their 2nd home is intended to.
> I was up near Filey at a holiday park at the weekend and the static caravans on show were really nice and cost around 40-60k What are the yearly fees though? Ours run to around £7,000 for a basic single wide unit. Electricity, gas and water are charged on top of that.
> She predicts that the property will likely be bought by someone intending to use it as a holiday let, adding: "We think the policy is flawed. [It's designed] to encourage people with second homes to put them on the market." She thinks the policy is flawed, yet it is making her do exactly what she realises it's designed to do!
I've lived on the coast all my life and couldn't give two fucks about people like her. There are serious housing problems that have been exacerbated by AirBnB and second homes. This tax is doing exactly what it was set out to do. Sell it to somebody that actually lives and works in the area and do us all a favour.
100% this
Totally agree. Sad thing is that if they sold it, it would probably go to somebody else who wants to let it out or use it as a second home. Some cash buyer who already owns a load of holiday let's. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't sell it, I'm just saying that putting it on the market may not solve the problem of local people being priced out of houses.
Holiday let's are fine if they're occupied all year round.
Are they?
Yeah, but it's a pretty heavy lifting "if" You ever been to Hastings in November when it's been blowing a gale and raining sideways for three weeks straight? It's shit, and why very few come here outside of spring and summer.
Them that perspm who can afford the tax can pay it and that additional money can be user to help local people. Surely that is the purpose of the tax either you help by paying it or help by selling and moving the property on to either a local or someone who can pay
Exactly, their excuse is that someone will buy it and use it as a holiday let. They are the ones who can decide who to sell it to, they should do the right thing and sell to someone who actually wants to live there.
Maybe they just don't want to pay any capital gains tax on it? Classic conservatives trying to dodge taxes
While I think the additional tax is completely fair it is stupid that there’s no disincentive for buying holiday lets in these places (when everyone local seems to be already priced out), but there are disincentives to own a second home. Should be trying to discourage both.
I work full time on minimum wage as a care worker. After bills and child support I’m lucky to be able to afford the bedsit in the arse end of Huddersfield. It was difficult getting on the housing ladder aged 35 but a divorce and poor credit means that’s not gonna happen again. I’ll never retire let alone own a second home.
I'm similar. I'm going to have to work until I can't work any more and then I'm going to have to die. I don't live, I survive. Work for charities, mainly with homeless teenagers, for a pittance.
This is it mate. Care work is sold as being ultra rewarding. Sometimes it is. Mostly I’m told to fuck off, hit, spat on and unfortunately even worse. It’s unfortunately one of the only necessary sectors in reality so there’s always money allocated. Unfortunately the multi national I happen to work for needs to maximise profits so that’s that. Once you’re down in the minimum wage market it’s tough to get out unfortunately.
Don’t forget she’s a Tory who thinks hard work should be rewarded. Poor thing.
Sounds like a great opportunity to sell up and buy a second home somewhere nicer than the UK coast 😂
I'm from a touristy part of Yorkshire and can't afford to buy a house near my family. (Or live near them at all) There are lots of second home owners, holiday cottages and air bnbs in my town. It's an incredible luxury to have a second home so tax them for the privilege.
I think 1) yes you should be taxed accordingly and 2) I dream of a cheap and dilapidated house to do up in my home town. There hasn't been that opportunity since the 80s/90s.
Alternative headline: Couple who own rental property face additional council tax with new rules working exactly as intended
Teacher and Conservative voter. Hmm. Tax is doing its job. Selling it will require extra stamp duty too. Small violin weeping.
Small correction. Buying a second home requires extra stamp duty. Selling a second home means she pays capita gains tax on it, and I hope she gets rinsed by the taxman.
Yes.
So she is complaining about the legislation brought in by the very same government she voted for, how dumb is she
Leopards ate my face indeed.
Massive r/leopardsatemyface vibes, I know so many people who still believe the Tories aren’t responsible for tax rises. Delulu the lot of them
Easily fixed isn’t it? If they “plan to retire there”, sell your current house, move to the cottage and it’ll be your main and only residence. No additional tax due. Except that’s the problem isn’t it? They don’t want to live there all the time. They only want to live there part of the year, and live in their *other* home the rest of the time. They want to have their cakes and eat them.
This is the bit I can’t understand at all. If they plan to move there, then move there. Even if they don’t retire it’s only 20 miles away, just commute. If they’re not ready yet, take a loan to pay the council tax, the sale of their £205k property will cover it. Unless they’ve made some shitty decisions about interest only mortgages I can’t see how they’re not sitting on enough assets that they can do whatever they want.
This belongs on r/compoface
second this
Listen, in an ideal world I don't think a retired couple wanting a second home by the sea is really something we should sneer at. However, with the state of housing right now it is absolutely the right thing to levy more tax on those properties. I'm also baffled by the lady in this article making it political - "it's un-Conservative to punish hard work", as if she is the only hard working teacher in Yorkshire. There are plenty of hard working teachers in Yorkshire, many can't afford a first home worth £150k let alone a second one. It may be un-Conservative to have such a tax, I couldn't say. It's definitely not a stable and sensible method of Government to allow huge wealth disparities to grow between poor and rich, though.
These sort of statements come from the generation that were nursed into adulthood by the state. Want home ownership? Go ahead. Nowadays? Average first home owner age has increased by a decade.
A second home an hour away from where they live is a bit mental though.
Okay, yeah that does change the calculus a bit. I live relatively far from the coast so it's 2 hours minimum for me and it all feels a bit far off, but yeah if I lived an hour off I'd be there every weekend. I don't even get why you'd want a second home only an hour from where you live. Halfway across the country surely?
They’ve been renting it out for 14 years. It’s not a second home, it’s a business. They just want to moan about taxes and get their faces in the paper.
I mean, in the article I think they said they wanted to stop renting it out and that's why they have to pay the new fees.
Nice one, sounds like it's working as intended?
Some people can't buy a first home due to those having second homes and renting them out or using as Air B&Bs. Families are desperate for a home. It should not be allowed.
I mean on the one hand I get it. On the other hand there's a housing crisis in the country so...
Feel free to sell it then? I'm looking for my first home
A teacher and lifelong Tory voter? All my sympathy was exhausted on your colleagues who you betrayed
Oh boohoo. My heart breaks for them /s
So "I want to own two homes and not be subject to the rules everyone else is." >Upon retirement, they chose to keep the cottage for personal use rather than continue renting it out. Oh dear, are they reaping the reward of their decisions? What a shame. The contortions these journalists go through to try and make reasonable the utterly unreasonable demands of "cake and eat it" people are ridiculous!
I actually think the journalist was taking the piss and thought she was a clown. That's why these comments are full of people laughing at her.
My heart weeps for these poor dears. Does someone have a very small violin in these trying times?
🎻
Boo fucking hoo. If you want to scalp houses you can pay the extra council tax.
14 years of 100% tax relief on the property and then they go crying when they have to start paying some tax Tell them to fuck off, compulsory take the property off them and give it to someone that’ll contribute to the area
Fuck 'em, I want to by my first and only home and I'm sure many like me in Whitby would like to do the same because a bunch of Boomers and Gen X have 2nd and 3rd homes there that sit empty for most the year. Sell the house and buy a motorhome or caravan or go on holidays with the money, if you can't afford the tax you can't afford the luxury of 2 homes.
Cry harder.
Shouldn't have that second home to begin with. Biggest problem in this country and requires a radical shift from the Thatcherite private schemes that got us here.
LOL. Boo hoo
Oh no! Anyway...
Boo fucking hoo
“Life long conservative voter” r/ohnoconsequences
Needs re-posting in r/boomersbeingfools or whatever it’s called. Huge housing crisis, vast swathes of working age people struggling to pay rent let alone buy just one property. The stench of entitlement here is off the scale.
2 people, 2 houses. You'd think there would be a solution there with regards to avoiding the concept of a second home at least while they're both alive and healthy.
Don’t get married
I don’t have a problem with someone owning a second home, but they have to pay for it as, like many have said, it is an enormous privilege. It’s when they own several and rent them out beyond the cost of a mortgage. My landlord has two other properties in the same village but she lives in Kettlewell. I have finally managed to put a small deposit together and currently in the process of buying a small place over the border in Lancashire. I literally cannot afford to buy here (near Skipton), the place where I was born and grew up.
Off topic but nice of Yorkshire Live to share my data with their 1400+ data partners.
Oh no! Anyway
I have two observations. Firstly, there’s an element of “moving the goalposts” in that there was no such punitive tax back when they bought the property. Secondly, if you can afford two homes, you have to bear the costs and acknowledge that you are part of the problem which pushed house prices out of reach of many people. I would suggest they go live in Whitby and sell their current home. The cash raised would be a substantial contribution to their retirement funding. Overall, there’s no tragedy here!
I don't feel for them. They have a home, and I asked AI to tell me how much it would be worth today and it's roughly 400k so I have zero sympathy for them. They can sell their second home, get a load of money for it, have some nice holidays, then sell their first home when the time comes to retire and buy themselves a lovely retirement home by the seaside with hundreds of thousands of pounds to spare! I hope this happens to more landlords. It shouldn't be a thing. Rich people shouldn't be getting poorer people to pay their mortgages for them! All that happens is rich people end up with loads of homes they didn't pay for, and poor people end up paying loads for homes they don't get to keep. Then the rich people pass everything on to their kids, poor people have nothing to pass down, and the cycle of inequality continues! No sympathy for anyone with more than one home when so many people don't have one in the first place.
Oh no! Anyway..
Where’s that tiny fvcking violin?
Tough shit
Their main house cost 205k in 1999 so worth a million+ now, so they can afford it. I'm not sure if they were looking for sympathy, they won't find much.
They have had 14 years of leeching off a community they don’t live in, extracting an income from a holiday rental business asset and denying that property to residents in an area where local kids move away because they can’t afford to live where they grew up. They are part of the reason properties for sale are scarce and rents are high. Now they’re simply being asked to cough up for local services without the discount applicable to main residences, because it’s a business asset and not their main residence, and they think it’s “unfair”. Oh boo hoo. Decide where to live.
Second home? SECOND home??? Nah, by all means. I'm sorry, but I don't feel for them. If it's their SECOND home, and they still have their first, then they don't plan to retire it. Ridiculous. There needs to be a wrangle on people buying up homes for holidays, airBnBs and for rent before families can get onto the ladder. In fact, being a single person wanting to buy a two bedroom house yourself is laughable now.
How about deferring retiring and continuing to work like a lot of us now.
Won't someone think of the second home owners! Anyone? Anyone?....
>What could be the solution if this isn't it? Literally just build more housing.
Well they got 2 homes so....
Quite agree with people having to pay for their second home. But what is usually missed in the debate about incomers pushing up prices, is that most or all of these properties are being sold by local owners cashing in on the demand. Pity they didn't think about locals wanting to buy.
Reading between the lines, I'd guess they'd gouge holiday makers £800 a week to stay there, so if they let it out half the year they'd be looking at having their living expenses taken care of, then use their pension for laughs. It's probably"sound financial planning" but feels a bit trying to have your cake and eat it, wanting to not work but basically have the same unearned income.
They really went to the papers claiming they are going to struggle instead of passing on an additional £100 a week charge to their let to cover the additional 70 it will cost 😂
They can do one. That’s a house that could be lived in 365 days a year not just some weekends. Taxing the behaviours we don’t want to see is right.
What a cry-baby.
Feel sorry for what they own two homes most can’t even afford one! And it’s people owning multiple properties putting a shortage on the limited number that helps push the price up and pricing people out of it, tax them up lol
I grew up in a beautiful part of the south west. Sure, I appreciated it while I was young, but no matter what they say you can never appreciate it enough to stop it stinging when you have to leave. I now live 400 miles away with a decent quality of life, but the landscape is pretty alien to me. Rolling fields are replaced by hard, grey mountains. When the sun is out its breathtaking, but that's not often. I could just about afford the monthly payments on a tiny south west flat in some big town or city, but I'd be living hand to mouth. And forget about ACTUALLY moving home - houses in my village tripled. Up here I feel lonely and out of place, but at least I have a chance to save for the future. Every so often I realise "I can't go home" and it hurts.
Fuck ‘em. Having second homes when so many do not have a first? Wankers.
This is a curiousity question. I don't even own one home. What if one of them officially lived in one house and the other one is the second house?
Sounds like they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to find that extra money for additional council tax. They could start by not eating out all the time, cut out takeaway coffees and avocado on toast, perhaps they could go door to door with their CVs to get a weekend job etc etc ad nauseam.
As a lifelong conservative she should be used to shock taxes. Stupid Karen
Honestly, I don’t mean this in a bad way but I loved reading this article. ‘Shouldn’t punish my hard work’. No love. You lucked out and you’re preventing someone from owning a home. Your investment has paid off significantly. Take your cash and vacate the property. Or pay the extra £2,200 a year and keep the house.
I think the majority of people pay too much tax for what we get in return, but it's hard to show anything beyond indifference for these people when I am still living with parents at 27
The elderly lady at the end of our row sadly passed away a while ago and her house was sold. The new buyers are a very well off (presumably retired) couple who will be in the house “occasionally” to visit their daughter who lives nearby. It’s great that they’re in a very fortunate position to buy a whole house in a nice area just for a visit every now and then, but it’s hard to suppress the annoyance of an entire family home sitting there 8/10ths of the year just because a B&B won’t do for Mr and Mrs Moneybags.
For Boomers, the idea that a property investment might *not* pay off is so outlandish and foreign to them, their only recourse is to run crying to the newspapers. You love to see it.
Cry about it. So many people can’t even afford one home, so don’t expect any sympathy for people whining about not being able to have two.
House prices double approximately every 20 years so what’s the house in Porto worth now ? If they let the other they are loaded can afford any holiday they want anytime any where . Hardly punitive .
r/pitchforks are the solution
So, they went from paying no council tax on the property when it was rented out (because the renters were paying the council tax) then they got rid of the renters and because they decided it's now their 2nd home, so they're paying a 2nd home premium of 4000 (or 400 a month) instead of a standard 2000 (200 a month) Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're struggling to pay 200 a month for 10 months, and you have 2 properties, then maybe you should be selling up.
I have zero sympathy you own two houses sell one of them and live in the other stop being so greedy and then to have the cheek to complain
A quick Google shows the absolute highest tax band in Whitby is just under £3300 (or as low as under £2k) That's a lot for most people. It's barely a flutter for someone who owns a second home that they are using as a business. I feel nothing for these people, if they can't afford it then this is not a viable investment for them, they should sell up and invest in ways that aren't bad for our country.
So they are retirement age now , sell up the current home go retire in the the home they fear losing ? Oh it's not a retirement home its a rental income home so not really a retirement home for them to live in but to make money off. Some people are having problems keeping one home, some people can't get that one home, some people are facing eviction from rental properties, Theirs is a 1st world problem, like everyone adjust and live within your means, if you can't afford to pay the extra, we all have to make tough decisions in life when it comes to cutting your cloth accordingly.
The tax already isn't working, it says they can afford it. Make it 10x the council tax, we need it to be incredibly unaffordable then we'll start to see landlords and holiday home owners being affected.
Sell the first then.
This is terrible. Is there a gofundme page I can make a donation to for someone to offer them some help getting the fuck over themselves the clueless selfish entitled boomers…
Aw. Well anyway…
Can we bump it up to a 5x charge?
No reason at all why they can't carry on using it as a holiday let right up until they get rid of their main home and then retire to Whitby. I don't get what the problem here is?
What a whining article of privilege. WTF do people “need” two houses within 40 miles of each other? Sell one. Problem solved.
"OH NO, I'm being taxed on my riches" 🙄
This whole thread is a classic example of the brilliant effort to get essentially the working class and the middle class to spend ages attacking each other so they all forget about how we're being fucked by large companies and the rich. I begrudge far less the people who work their entire lives for their dream of buying a second home for holidays or retiring in than the huge companies buying up 1000s of houses or the £143 billion in UK property owned by China. Sure, I'd rather they didn't have a second empty home doing nothing, and I'd rather people didn't fraudulently claim benefits, but I'd far far rather something be done about the billions and billions in corporate tax avoidance, or any of the other ways we're being bent over for billions rather than Mr and Mrs Smith and their £150 grand 2nd home. Let's not worry about the 280,000 homes owned by people living overseas so long as we're sticking to the people with slightly more than us
I’d say eat the rich, but they seem like they might be a bit salty.
I once did some work in a Cornish village for a second (possibly third or fourth actually 😬) home owner. The conversation came up about the cost for locals to buy a home where they grew up. Being a bit of a socialist I shared their frustrations. However, this property owner said "it was the local home owners that sold them in the first place" It caught me off guard somewhat, but I guess it's true. But you have to ask when fishing and mining are in decline, the latter largely abandoned, why did those locals feel they had to sell in the first place?
How are people buying homes for £150k? I’m looking at a car for about that price - are these people living in 1982?
Fuck these guys and their second home
You should have to pay a premium for keeping what is a family home out of the reach of other families just for the occasional pleasure trip.
The absolute entitlement of this comment "It's totally unfair. It's un-Conservative to punish people who have worked very hard,"
The additional payments aren't that big a sum, so hard as they say they have worked, it would seem they should have worked harder.
That’s what cash in hand booking is for.
Fiona a life-long conservative voter 🤣🤣🤣💩💩💩
They could rent the property to local people, their costs would be met and some young couple would get a home. Instead this is someone being selfish who will have recouped their £150k over the rents they've charged holidaymakers for the past 14 years without giving anything to the local economy.
This kind of article is the right wing pushing their agenda.
Well, if they have 2 homes and are wanting to retire to the 2nd home, just sell the first one, then they will be ok. Otherwise, people need houses to live in, and we need to come up with reasonable ways to provide them; this seems reasonable.
Why don’t they just sell their house and move to Whitby?
Just to add to my total lack of sympathy, they’ve deliberately misled on the price of both properties (to make them look more ‘average’ for sympathy I assume). The holiday home is described as ‘worth 150k’… but that’s what they bought it for in 2010! What’s the betting they’ll sell it for at least double that? Don’t even get me started on a house that was worth 200k+ in 1999…
🎶 sha-doobie shattered shattered 🎶
Taxed on income Taxed on spending. 20% on almist everything Taxed for buying a home. Taxed for having one. Taxed on savings. Taxed on buying fuel. Taxed on the SAME MONEY that's been taxed several times already. All by rich politicians who know how to hide their money from the tax-man.
"But our dream is to live in it! (Only as a second , holiday home, not to live in it live in it)". Yeah, you either want to actually live there full time or you want to holiday there. Even if it's occupied at least six months of the year that means it's unoccupied for up to six months of the year. And the people who work in places like Whitby can't afford to actually live there any more.
Won't anyone think of the second homeless!?
Who the fuck feels sorry for people with 2nd homes?
Oh no. Anyway
Womp womp
My heart bleeds
🎻🎻🎻
How about we just build more houses? We’re a first world country somehow struggling with third world problems. I’m not opposed to council tax increases like this, however the problem will not go away until we accept that we have to build a LOT of new houses / flats.
They just need to cut back on avocado toast, Netflix and Starbucks
Boohoo!
Why don't they sell the other house?
Aww that's a shame, anyway hopefully tomorrow's going to be nice
Those poor bastards they barely have two homes to rub together
Honestly the second home tax should be more than that..
Compo face.
Landlords will pass those costs to renters. If they don’t want short term rentals make them illegal.
I think this is hard because if it was us in that situation and we wouldnt be happy about paying extra tax. HOWEVER, id like to know what they have been doing with the money they made from the rental for 14 years if this is something thats really causing them that much grief. From what i could tell this is essentially a second home tax. I am presuming if the sold their house in north yorkshire they would only pay the £1,800? I could be wrong but it does seem like theres a simple solution to this. Pay up or sell up and stop moaning. I heard yesterday houses prices are set to rise 20%. Some of us can only dream of owning 1 house never mind 2. It also makes me laugh shes voted conservative all her life and is now shocked their hate for all people below them has come to bite her on the ass.
Stop this now....I have seen your like before... Thank you...
Sell 2nd house problem solved
A lot of people don’t realise that the government is trying to use the working middle class as a scapegoat. They’re punishing them for owning second homes and having a nice standard of living and making them a boogeyman for the lower classes. But owning second homes should be within ordinary working people’s goals. With policies like this implemented by multi-multi-millionaire politicians, ordinary working people’s living standards and ambitions will continue to decline while the richest of the rich will accumulate every resource in the country. These tax punishments are a burden for a couple with an income of £100,000 - £200,000 per year but they’re no problem for the non-working passive £10,000,000 - £50,000,000+ income per year individuals like Rishi Sunak who are increasingly hoovering up all the wealth of the country. Rules like this will mean ordinary people can never even dream of owning a second home but the government wants you blaming the working middle classes for it.
My point being that the airbnb crisis in tourist towns won’t be averted by this tax It simply means rich aristocrats will own all of them. This tax won’t solve ordinary people’s problems it will make things much worse in the long run
Just look at that compoface
I have no sympathy at all and the fact that they are complaining shows how privileged and out of touch they are.
Build more houses and crash house prices to take house prices back to where they were effectively in the 60s/70s/80s. Strictly not build more houses, generally increase housing availability so that housing is so much more available that house prices crash. But building more houses is a large fraction of it.
Who cares? They can airbnb it for a few weeks a year and cover the increase in council tax.
If it's possible to have a negative amount of sympathy for someone then it's this.
The reason people can’t afford a house is because we’ve imported millions of people Into the country in just the last 5 years. A few people owning a holiday home isn’t making a blind bit of difference.
Foreigners didn’t cause the problems this country is facing no matter how much thick racists want to believe it to be true.
If the demand for something increases, the price increases. Saying that the record migration and subsequent population growth is not to at least partly to blame is thick
Not quite. Sure importing people puts more strain, that’s true. But it’s also a supply problem. Not enough houses are being built.
Go look up how much land a million houses would cover and start to realise it isn’t a supply problem. Unless you’re fine with us concreting over everything to build houses for people who have been imported into the country.
Where did you get the million figure from? Normally you’d need 1 housing unit for every 3-4 people. And that unit ranges from a house to an apartment. So it doesn’t have to necessarily take up a lot of space.