Second home owners in Wales face soaring council tax bills after Labour-Plaid deal.

Coastpath

D for dysgwr? A Welsh L (learner) plate? I bet you don't see many of them in London.

I live in Wales and I've never seen one.
Perhaps everyone has passed their test round here

Shizam

This isn’t happening only in pretty coastal areas. Locals in big cities such as London can’t afford to buy homes. Plenty of buy-to-let landlords. Foreign money buys up property. Dwindling supply of social housing.
I admire the Welsh parliament for giving it a go to fix this, but doubt it’s the solution. A massive building programme would help. But that would impact on countryside, which no one wants. ?‍♀️

Plenty of brownfield sites that could be built on. I always remember a row of beautiful old terrace houses near to a social club we used to go to in Birmingham. They were boarded up for years because Tescos were planning to build a store there which I don’t think was ever built. Often wonder what happened to them. And lots of terraced houses were saved from demolition and renovated in Newcastle if I remember right.

D for dysgwr? A Welsh L (learner) plate? I bet you don't see many of them in London.

Diplomat.?

Is D German? Deutschland?

What's a D plate Mokeswife?

Great! Can the same apply to London homes bought by the filthy rich from all round the world? Especially those with D plates on their cars!

This isn’t happening only in pretty coastal areas. Locals in big cities such as London can’t afford to buy homes. Plenty of buy-to-let landlords. Foreign money buys up property. Dwindling supply of social housing.
I admire the Welsh parliament for giving it a go to fix this, but doubt it’s the solution. A massive building programme would help. But that would impact on countryside, which no one wants. ?‍♀️

I have a chalet on a holiday park in Kent, and I pay full council tax on it, despite the fact it is a glorified shed with no insulation. All I can get is a library card, I am not eligible for any other services. The largest portion of my council tax pays for adult social care, which of course I cannot make use of. I bought if for myself and the family to use for weekends and holidays as we are based in London, and this is on the coast, but we are coming to the point when the GC are leaving home one by one and it is being used less and less.
I am surprised that many of you are mentioning that the people with second homes bring their food with them and don’t eat out or use the local facilities. That is certainly not the case in our experience. We see plenty of visitors using the local pubs and cafes, and most shop in the nearest town too, so although a lot of locals don’t like the visitors, we bring in plenty of trade for them, whether they be plumbers or bakers.

People talk about "high end work" whatever that is. the problem is that unless someone is working from a home office locals often don't want artisan type of work. You could be a painter or a sculptor but anything noisy is frowned upon. When we moved to Suffolk my OH applied for planning permission to turn a double garage into a workshop. Before he started work people started spreading lies and misinformation about what they'd seen and heard. The planners were keen for him to set up his business but because of the campaign got up against him (by the local vicar's wife) they were reluctant to grant the permission. In the end a Tory councilor, a farmer who lived down the road, went to the planning meeting, spoke up for my OH who was granted permission for two years.

When it came to renewing he asked if he could look at the previous application and he was given the file and was therefore able to read the rubbish that people had written. Planners are very well aware that neighbours will exaggerate or lie and the law changed between the first application and the second so that people could see wha was said about them.

Calistemon

^People are either forgetting, or not realising that many of the old houses in Wales were left empty because their owners moved to new bungalows- warm and easy to look after.^

Dinahmo no locals wanted to buy the abandoned old forester's cottage our friends bought years ago in N Wales. It would have just ended up as a heap of stones.

Exactly my point. I would have loved a wreck if I could have got work. In my mid twenties both I and my OH wanted career changes and we thought of moving to Wales. I thought about teachers' training college but then found out that I would have to be able to speak Welsh so that was out.

So we stayed in London and he went to college to learn cabinet making and furniture restoration and I fell into articles. And we bought a wreck in London.

We spent a family holiday over 30y in beautiful Salcombe ❤️
We thought then it was VERY posh.
We didn’t (don’t) have much money but quietly enjoyed eavesdropping conversations between rich folk and feeling somewhat inferior. Which was daft really.

Life’s rich tapestry eh?

And in The Lake District

The Scottish government need to do the same as parts of the country are swamped by second home owners from the cities.

Laura, the point you made about why shouldn’t a factory worker ha a little bit of what others have is why I don’t agree with second homes. Other people need them as a main home, it’s so unfair having houses empty most of the year earning extra income whilst your investment rises. People come into nice villages, bringing food with them, not helping local economy, driving up prices so locals are prices out.. I have family with second homes and those lovely areas are empty off season, meanwhile local people move as prices too high, businesses won’t set up there, it’s immoral. Give the factory workers a living wage and they can go on holiday or they could relocate to a nice area, if it had any jobs. That’s what the locals have to do, leaving their families by behind. Do not let more than 5 per cent as second homes, priority should be given to local people and industry. It’s a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted though. Let’s hope what Wales proposes happens all over uk.

There are no longer many ‘abandoned’ homes at all in the popular parts of Wales these days, houses are at a premium. Unless of course you want to live in a deprived city area, like Newport, or Wrexham for example - which where the young locals end up because they can’t afford to buy where they were brought up.

People are either forgetting, or not realising that many of the old houses in Wales were left empty because their owners moved to new bungalows- warm and easy to look after.

Dinahmo no locals wanted to buy the abandoned old forester's cottage our friends bought years ago in N Wales. It would have just ended up as a heap of stones.

In Northumberland many of the properties are second homes or holiday let’s, mainly the latter. . Having said that many of the local people have multiple homes that they let out and many more properties are owned and rented out by the local landowners. So it isn’t people from out of the county that own the properties. We did have a conversation once with a local person who complained about people owning holiday homes but was oblivious to the fact that their family owned a huge amount of properties and were happy to rent them out to holidaymakers.

I am talking about old stone buildings which were often roofless and/or with walls falling down. The Welsh did not want them.
I agree Dinahmo. When we were considering wrecks or dilapidated barns, we were told to multiply the purchase price by 3 for full restoration works.

Oh dear, just as I was thinking how openly good natured this discussion has been amongst those of us in the city or in the country or on the coast, with or without second homes, who have children priced out of the market and who want to keep rural communities alive etc.
Then comments fly about loud mouthed rude tossers from down south who have ugly kids!

The many 'abandoned' homes in Wales need not be left to be snapped up by greedy second/third property owners either. Schemes whereby older property is refurbished modernised and made available as either starter homes or small family homes to locals should be the rule. No home should be sold off to non locals unless there's a surplus. And if local authorities are unable to see the benefits of such a scheme, well they're not fit for purpose. That's the price paid for allowing puffed up idiots full of self importance and void of any talents get into position of local authorities power. Most councils are manned by a majority of 'civilians' with little or no competence I anything other than submitting expenses claims........

Gabrielle56

If successive Welsh govs had not been so plain greedy this situation would not be as it is! Decades ago they were bemoaning the second home débâcle but nought done about it , I remember the burning of homes and the attacks on comer-inners in 60/70/80s but did they do anything? Nope! They should have insisted that ownership be by Welsh nationals and renting only allowed when a homes surplus was the state of play! If folks want a holiday home- build one! On a brownsite too? What's wrong with staying in guest houses/hotels/ lodges/ hotels????? All too common is it?

In which case even more of the old buildings would have fallen into disrepair. I am talking about old stone buildings which were often roofless and/or with walls falling down. The Welsh did not want them.

Treetops05

Let's hope Devon and Cornwall do the same thing. My kids have no chance here - unless they live with us

I remember the first time we went to South Devon in a static on a farm in 80s and a day trip to salcombe was RUINED by some loud mouthed rude tossers from down south who never shut up for a second yelling and carrying on with themselves, what could and should have been a pleasant visit to a little town with maybe a paddle and a gift shop purchase for our little boys was akin to an afternoon listening to the screaming hoards of Chelsea/Harrow telling the world how much money they had and how clever their ugly kids were!!! Never ever been again .never will.

If successive Welsh govs had not been so plain greedy this situation would not be as it is! Decades ago they were bemoaning the second home débâcle but nought done about it , I remember the burning of homes and the attacks on comer-inners in 60/70/80s but did they do anything? Nope! They should have insisted that ownership be by Welsh nationals and renting only allowed when a homes surplus was the state of play! If folks want a holiday home- build one! On a brownsite too? What's wrong with staying in guest houses/hotels/ lodges/ hotels????? All too common is it?

Let's hope Devon and Cornwall do the same thing. My kids have no chance here - unless they live with us