there's been a lot of press coverage down yonder about second home owners.

recently second home owners in East Portlemouth failed to block a scheme for affordable housing, and in Dorset Graffiti is being written on properties that are not occupied full time.

house prices are artificially high in desirable areas, and the south west has some of the worst paying jobsin teh country (my wife now earns £11k less here than she did 2 years ago working in london, and the cost of living aint that different.)

what should be done? make second homes illegal - higher council tax on second homes - eat the rich?


personally, i think that people should only be allowed a second home if they buy a third one and rent it out at below market value to local people.... that'll learn them.

i feel all grubby and damon for starting this coz i don't really have an answer, andi want to hear if anyone else has any thoughts.... sorry.

I have long considered it an important issue.

Who wouldn't have a cottage in Cornwall they could pop down to whenever they felt like it, if they could. It is such a desirable thing for the second home owner but it is devastating for the communities which get taken over.

It happens here in the South too.

A government which gives to the rich and takes from the poor, which ours does, is hardly going to do anything about it

One thing that could be done is change the law on poll tax on second homes.



it should be the less you live there the more you pay!

Exactly. Over here 2nd homes are very expensive because a lot of the benefits you get for your primary home (e.g. interest of your mortgage can be deducted from taxes, which for a normal home these days is a net benefit of about 8000 pounds per year...) you don't get for your second home.

You can tax 2nd homes in several different ways, just to make them more expensive, which would give locals looking for a primary home an advantage.

It's not that difficult, really

Aren't some of these homes let out i.e. to tourists that some of these areas depend heavily upon? Cornwall has 5m tourist visitors a year (probably going to go up as no-one can afford abroad anymore) - they have to stay somewhere. They also account for about a quarter of the local economy.

Tourism, like it or not, is here to stay and many of the regions that have the highest amount of second homes actively encourage toursim. Is there any difference in treatment of 2nd homes that are just left empty except when the owners visit or those that are, in reality, businesses (or are these not classed as 2nd homes?)

As Twp Pints said the majority of these second homes are effectively businesses the income from which is taxable. A couple of friends of mine have places in Devon for which they rightly pay full council tax etc because the homes are occupied for most of the year.

My friend lives in Whitby, and reckons that the holiday-home-to-let market has been just as damaging for the local community as people buying houses and only occupying them for a few weeks a year. While it's true that the wider community probably takes economic benefit from these holiday cottages, they have inflated the local property market to such a degree that, like many rural areas, local young people are priced out of their own communities.

You're right, Two Pints - tourism is essential to many of these communties, especially those which have lost their traditional industries. But some sort of sensitive re-investment by the local councils into affordable housing for local people should be an outcome.

In Derbyshire, within a particular radius of the Peak District, you'll find that really lovely little stone cottages are being sold substantially below market value. This is because of the Derbyshire Clause (I can't remember if it has a more formal name) which means that only people who have been living within the county for a prescribed period of time are eligible to buy those houses. This is designed to keep homes affordable for locals and to deter second-homers. Always seemed a very sensible scheme to me.

You can say that about just about every area in the Country, The problem isn't second homes pushing up prices the housing market has been artificially inflated for years, The problem is mainly that affordable housing is the first to be dropped when building companies get planning permission for new homes but the main cause is the total lack of new social housing.

you're right; in some places it's tourism inflating the property market and in others it's simply wealthy incomers. It's a problem that plagues every attractive rural area, and there simply isn't enough affordable housing to be had.

I'm not one to particularly believe in land-owners and noblesse oblige, but where I live now is definitely the most socially diverse village I've ever lived in. This is because a substantial number of the houses are owned by the Buckminster Estate, which rents them out very affordably. My first house here was an ex-Buckminster cottage - they do sell off the odd property from time to time - and the row of terraces it was in was about 2/3 owned by the estate. Moreover, it isn't horrible social housing - my friend rents a beautiful cottage on the green - the old doctor's surgery - with 3 bedrooms and open fires and a nice garden, for £400/month.

The properties aren't means-tested as such - you go to the top of the list if you have children, though, because they try to encourage families and a good sense of community. As I say, it's the most socially mixed village I've lived in, which really adds to the liveliness and close-knit feeling you get here.

I know. It's not unusual.

or of the old stuff that was flogged off

briefly because i am going to get a life in a minute.. there is a difference between second homes and holiday accommodation. Second homes don't do anything for the tourist industry.

Most second homes are rented out when the owners are not there, no?

Exactly - The old stock has never been replaced and the next generation is suffering for the folly of Thatcher. Second homes don't add to the local communnity... but in the same way in the village where I live the older generation constantly moan that the place is nothing more than a dormtory for commuters who travel further to work for longer hours. These are local people.

don't know i know of several houses in my mum and dad's village that are only occupied by the owner for school holidays.

My Ma and da sold a house (with an indoor swimming pool) 12 years ago to a business man from London. its 3 doors away from their new place. i would say that 9 times out of 10 that i visit them, the house is unoccupied. god knows what state the pool is in!

They probably have a man that does.

there was something on the 'local' news about 2nd homeowners blocking an essential fishing 'pier', stating that it would "blight their view" - which they only use for about 6 weeks of the year, compared to the fishermen who use the proposed build area every day

Thats shit isn't it! Totnes is slowly being strangled by second home owners. They want all highstreet shops and pizza huts and stuff and are in arguements with the residents of Totnes , the people who have made their homes there.
Someone said since Sept 11th, lots of "london types" have been buying second homes in the West country incase something like that happens here. Theyre taking London down with them!

Not quite second homes, but I went for a bike ride on Sunday around the common near the back of our house and the developers seem to have raped the land in favour of housing estates. I wouldn't mind so much if it were 'affordable housing', but it isn't. I had to laugh at one house, they'd put up a "Save Our Greenbelt" poster in the window of their 3 year old home

There maybe a %age of the new homes there that are affordable housing Jon, that's how I ended up with my new place.

My mates gran's Lady David and I've spent a few xmas's at her second home in Polzeath, Cornwall. She used money given to her by a tory MP to buy it.

I'll get my coat.

Do you have issues with new builds? I'm a big fan of renovating and improving existing houses, but with a growing population the need to build new houses is high. Specially with the house prices of these days, even in this crisis.

Not so much, couldn't do really as I've just moved into one. On the whole though it depends where they are. Here it's not even 2 miles from a city centre bordering on a flood plain, and if the University don't challenge the plans......

On the whole though the attitude of the British public is that they're a nation on nimby's (not in my back yard.) Local's everywhere seem to acknowledge it needs doing, but always somewhere else.

Nor me, I was a plasterboarder / carpenter for almost a decade before moving into Callcenters / IT. Thatcher pretty much fucked up whatever chances of having a trade while she was in power, decimating the building industry by wholesale Right To Buy schemes (amongst other things) and not allowing the councils to reinvest in new housing stock.

However, there needs to be some thought process taken into the consideration that, building houses on flood plains and without the necessary road / sewage infrastructure isn't a good idea.

the only thought is profit :angry

I Wayne hemmingway

Building houses on flood plains is just plain stupid.
Buying a house on a flood plain is even more stupid.
The UK has some serious issues with water management, I thought they knew that by now and had learned from it...

OK, so flood plain was the wrong wording, sorry. The field that does flood (from the river) quite regularly is probably 20 metres beneath us anyway, and as the rivers got locks on it so I'm sure it can be controlled in someway.
"The great flood" that people talk about that happened years before I moved to Cambridge wouldn't have touched these flats and those lowest down have what looks like an underground car park, but is in fact huge drains for flood water to go down.

I wasn't referring to your house I was replying to Jon. I'm sure the cambridge is ever so wise when deciding where to build, must be with all those brainiacs

......who let dumb asses move in....

You'd think so wouldn't you, considering that we live on an island

2nd 3rd 4th and 5th ?

a quote from one of the Labour MPs who claimed for a non existent mortgage ..

the MP, who also shares a house in his Wirral South constituency with his wife, wrote to the fees office and said: "I sold some small properties and was in the dilemma of either using the receipts to purchase other properties or, which was for me a bit more comfortable, to pay off some of the mortgage."



he is refusing to pay back the money!