Would you support a BIG second home tax?

How would people feel about an extra tax on top of council tax for anyone owning a second home for themselves and a big tax on rental income?

 

Perfect. Will allow the young uns to buy a home for their families. I also think we need to tighten rules on landlords so that all rental properties are of the same basic standard.

 

Airbnb letting is the worst. We definitely need to address housing in this country.

 

Massively in favour, but zero chance of this government ever implementing it.

 

Might help rebalance the housing market.

It shouldn’t be an easy money spinner for a rich person to buy a second house and rent it out, when it’s so hard to buy a house for the first time.

It would need to be at a level that doesn’t completely remove the rental market.

 

Man, this reminds me of when I was frequenting house buying forums when looking to buy my house and there were tons of people saying things like 'I'm about to buy a second house at £1 million pounds but I will have to pay stamp duty on it, what scam can I pull to not pay what the law stipulates I have to?' The stupid illegal stuff they wanted to argue that they should be allowed to do was ridiculous, rather than recognise their privileged position and just pay the damn thing or accept that they cannot actually afford the house. I'm not very popular with someone at work though because she has two rental houses and I have absolutely no sympathy that she's not making much money on them and they are a lot of effort to look after - just sell the bloody things then! The bigger problem is definitely empty homes though... there are hundreds of thousands of empty homes whilst there are people who cannot afford to buy (or even rent) one.

 

The only issue I have us that I know several self employed builders that have been so screwed by the pension disaster that they've ended up investing in rental properties to fund their retirement. I know we need to resolve the housing issue but is it fair to suddenly put a huge tax on people who did something perfectly legal to secure their future?

 

Rental income is already taxed at your marginal rate. Further taxation would make it no longer viable for thousands of small landlords. What happens to the people that depend on those landlords to put a roof over their head?

A very naive suggestion.

 

I wouldn’t object, but I fear all it would do is make harder for the people who currently can’t afford to buy a house
Edit, just seen Donks comment.

 

any investment s have risk though. They still will have money if they sell them presumably? I don't have a problem with landlords, we need rental properties but I think it's a licence to print money in a lot of cases and should be better regulated.

 

Thus why it's a question rather than a statement of intent. Provokes debate

 

I don't think increased tax on rental income would make property unviable as an investment - the capital appreciation is still attractive.

 

I'm quite close to the property industry so keen to address a few misconceptions here. Firstly a thriving property industry is key to any healthy economy, if property prices are going down, that means everyone who owns one is losing money and that is a recession waiting to happen.

Landlords make small amounts in rent, an ROI of 5% is considered very good, so it isn't as if these people are making vast sums. The real windfall, in a world where pensions are not going to be enough to sustain you in later life, is on selling the property. Property prices in the UK have doubled on average every decade since the war, and this is what has funded and fuelled the Baby Boomer generation. It should also be noted that landlords are already taxed a large amount on their 5% returns.

I appreciate the sentiment of this thread is to tax the rich and agree to an extent, but focusing that on one industry which is so key economically doesn't make any rational sense. There will always be people with money and we want them to invest that money in the UK, property is the best vehicle for this to happen. Other investments like stocks and shares help the global economy, not specifically the UK one. Living in a globalised world these people can buy an investment property in many different countries. Taxing them out the game so they buy French chalets and Spanish casas instead would be an utterly bizarre thing to do.

 

Houses should be homes though, not investments. If there was secure, habitable long term rental in this country then I might agree with you but at the moment families can be turfed out of their homes with a month's notice. And we're paying through taxation for these foreign investors via housing benefit.

 

At least make stamp duty negligible on first homes and much higher on second properties. It bothers me that someone has to pay a fortune to move closer to their work if they move schools/hospitals etc. We should be encouraging shorter commutes.

And correct Helen, houses should be homes not investments. The previous fifty years of greed have made people forget that. Invest in companies and innovation, not homes.

The trouble is, in the same newspaper I was reading (admittedly here in Australia but it's the same thing) there was an article about the need for affordable housing and then further towards the back in the property section a piece by a real estate agent talking about how they need to encourage more migration to raise the price in stagnant property price areas. People talk like they want affordable housing but they don't.

 

Of course I would, greedy capitalist *****. Major reason society is ******.

 

My unprofessional take on it is that anyone owning a second home and is left to go derelict or left empty gor long lenghths without good reason should have sanctions.too many empty homes and homeless people to be messing about .

 

But we live in a Capitalist society so everything has a monetary value, as such anything from homes to stamps, to Barnsley programmes can be an investment. If a home was not to be an investment it would have to be free.

I would say that families can't be turfed out of their home at a months notice for two reasons. One it is not their home to start with as they haven't purchased it, two the UK has incredibly strict rules on eviction, so tenants do have very strong rights.

Finally by and large foreign investors investing in the UK property market is good for the UK economy. It's pure capitalism, trickle down economics. It's better for the UK that Abramovic invests in the UK and pays 40-50% tax on everything Chelsea do, than investing elsewhere.

 

It depends how you define a healthy economy. I wouldn't say its "healthy" when the increase in house prices outstrips wage increases at a pace that effectively prices out a decent proportion of young people.

 

I’m never going to own my own homo, always have to rent..