To try to tackle this, the Welsh Labour government, alongside Plaid Cymru, introduced measures to curb second-home ownership. This included giving councils the ability to push council tax on second homes to 300% the usual rate. They also closed a loophole whereby second-home owners could register as a business in order to pay the much lower business rates.
Gwynedd council used these powers to hike council tax to 150% in April 2023. By the end of 2024, house prices had fallen by 12.4% as second-home owners tried to sell up. In Pembrokeshire, house prices fell by 8.9% after the council increased the council tax to 200% on second homes (though this was reduced to 150% recently).
Still too low tbh. No one should get a second until everyone’s got their first.
It’s 150% if you fill in the form in Welsh. If you use English, it’s 300%.
I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.
I’m joking, but if it were possible, you’d need to pass at least a simple Welsh language test before buying a place in Wales. The locals have historically had a huge grievance with well-to-do English people buying up most of the pretty villages, pricing the locals out, and their lack of connection to the culture of Wales adds insult to injury. (There have been, IIRC, incidents of such second homes burning down, and nobody having seen anything.)
Quebec is taking notes.
This would help Seattle and Vancouver BC. I know we’re trying this in America, but it’s nice to see where it’s working.
Such an obvious thing too. Personally I’d rather they just ban ownership beyond a primary home until the crisis is over. But I get from a political point of view that it would be less doable.
That would work better, wouldn’t it. I bet they can pick their primary home or do they have to prove it? If they don’t have to prove it, it would be easy enough to say that the Wales home is their primary and their second home is in a place with not tax burdens. I guess we have to do this everywhere?
Most places have a specific occupancy duration to qualify as a primary home, right?
If not, that seems to be a good option. Primary counts if used by owner for living >240 days of the year (random number but figured it should be at least 3/4 a year or so). Like how we calculate whether someone counts as in state vs out of state for tuition.
Or impose a minimum radius around a property where you can’t buy a second one and then a minimum around both where you can’t have a third one and so on. Want to have a house in the city and a cottage >100km away in a straight line? Go ahead. Want to own a bunch of house and use them as short term rental units? Better be ready to waste your time traveling all over the country buddy!
Or impose a minimum radius around a property where you can’t buy a second one and then a minimum around both where you can’t have a third one and so on. Want to have a house in the city and a cottage >100km away in a straight line? Go ahead.
But this is what’s causing the problems. People are buying second houses in holiday destinations, then either leaving them empty for most of the year, or renting them out for things like Airbnb. House prices are going up, and locals can’t afford to buy. Off season, the local businesses don’t have enough custom to sustain themselves, and end up going under.
Most people who do that do it close enough to home to take care of it themselves though
The whole point of holiday homes is that they’re not near the main home, otherwise it defeats the object.
I’m talking about the ones who rent them, not people who have a cottage somewhere out in the boonies. You don’t want to have to travel hours every weekend just to clean up after your client.
They don’t travel to clean up, they hire a cleaning company for a fraction of what they charged the guests. No-one’s travelling half way across the country every week to change the sheets and empty the bins.
Where are you getting that opinion? Is that backed by data or literally anything that would give weight to what you’re saying?
Otherwise you’re just defending landlords. Cause that sounds so wrong it’s unbelievable someone would just assert that.
Just my experience having had a cottage far away from everything with other cottages around, the few of them available for short term rental were either unavailable most of the time as the owners didn’t want to have to travel hours just to clean up every weekend and those that were available at all times were owned by people who also lived around there full time.
