I'm sorry but this is a dreadful policy. If people in idyllic villages did not want outsiders buying second homes there then they shouldn't sell to them. This will limit the supply of second homes driving up the price. There will then be non price competition between vendors to lobby the council so that they can sell their house for an artificially high level. This will be exacerbated by the fact that the demand for houses that do not get the "OK for 2nd home" stamp will fall, as will their prices. So this will lower the value of the prime asset of those without the contacts to councillors and planning agencies whilst those who do will get a big financial boon. I'm afraid this doesn't benefit those its trying to help. Foolhardy indeed.
This is not to say that the issue of rural services, their coverage, service, and efficiency are not very important issues, yet this is not the solution. Its a sound bit policy with very unpleasant, hopefully, unintended consequences.
Please Nick. Don't go along with it.
Monday, 3 March 2008
This new anti-second homes policy is illconceived and foolish
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5 comments:
You're right that it isn't a fully thought out policy, but people selling their houses in villages and moving away from them don't give a shit about what happens to that village due to their nature of selling the house.
I don't think this policy is the right way of going about things, but the blame of second houses causing problems is firmly in the realm of the conflict of free markets vs community needs, not in the fact that people are selling them or buying them. We shouldn't villify second home owners nor those that sell their house to anyone...but we should be coming up with a way to sustainably deal with the problems those two sets of people cause.
This makes me absolutely furious. The solution is perfectly simple - throw everything you've got at taxing second homes. Double, or triple, or whatever, the council tax on whichever has the lower rates and limit the number of PPR elections that can currently be abused to save the bulk of CGT. There are probably other fun things that don't occur to me at the moment.
Measures that specifically penalise second home ownership are illiberal and unnecessary. All that is required is the long established and willfully neglected Liberal policy of shifting tax to a levy on the annual rental value of land - LVT. Property ownership per se is not the problem. Failure to tax property owners properly certainly is. All we should require of second home owners is that they pay for the privilege (and for their invariably very valuable first homes too). The market will do the rest, with rural rents and house prices reducing accordingly.
I agree. It is illiberal and wrong.
And there is no disconnect here between community needs and the free market, that is a false distinction.
For a start, there is no free market, secondly if there was any clash would be between the free market and the conservative impulse, between change and stasis.
Andrew Duffield is absolutely correct, LVT is probably the best solution we have for this. I am becoming more and more convinced of its merits to solve situations like this.
Thanks all for the comments. As ever I feel I agree with Tristan, especially on the "change vs stasis" point. I need to read more about LVT, but it does look like the most plausible option. Also it is a far better way to tax non-doms than this absurd 30k flat fee.
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