In City of Vancouver you pay $20,670 Tax per year for your vacant property. Do you think Ireland should have similar Vacant Tax to help with housing crisis?

by ParaMike46

44 comments

  1. I don’t know that putting that tax in place would help the housing crisis. Property value is booming, if people were holding on to vacant lots waiting for them to increase in value, it’s a great time now to sell. And the extra funds just add to our enormous budget surplus – which isn’t being used to fix the housing crisis.

  2. No

    Property taxes only make sense if you have much lower income taxes.

  3. Not sure taxing people helps the housing situation. Unless there’s enough of it and it’s ringfenced to develop more affordable housing (live/rent) then it’s just window dressing. If it got used for a housing purpose then it makes sense but otherwise it doesn’t solve the problem.

  4. No, Ireland should fucking build houses like a normal developed country.

  5. That’s insane.
    Vancouver Aldi has a big homeless problem so I’m not sure how useful that tax is.

  6. Absolutely. We should have a “use it or lose it” law with regards to property.

    So many people sat on land/houses/commercial units waiting for the “right time” to sell or develop. Similar to the dereliction levy, but that’s rarely collected as councils don’t have the staff to collect it despite the funds would be enough to employ a whole team and more.

  7. Maybe not 20 grand. But something to light a fire under people and make them do something with their boarded up houses.

  10. Plenty of landlords in the comments anyway. Obviously, yes, tax vacant properties.

  12. A key problem in towns is rates. Half of the main street of Tipp Town is for rent—but rates are high even though rents are reasonable. If a business lets out an upstairs area for housing, they’re charged rates. But, if they use it for storage, they don’t pay rates on it.

    We just lost two thriving restaurants to costs.

  13. You assume the government is acting in good faith to help mitigate the housing crisis… while they profit from it. They are working against the whims of the people for their own gain, so while yes this would be a good measure it will not happen with this government. And probably not with the next government either. I’d temper your expectations.

  14. Derelict property included, I’m hoping. I’d suggest an extra tax on dereliction.

  15. This is probably a condo going by the price, the average house price in Vancouver is close to 1.2 million dollars. Also worth bearing in mind, the Vancouver market is flooded with foreign investors, with lots and lots of capital. They can easily afford a bill like this. It’s done nothing to reduce the prices at all.

  16. This kind of hypothetical posts are tiring because everyone will always comment “of course we should do it”, but most will gladly keep FF/FG in power, which are parties that want nothing to do with the housing crisis and interference with housing investment funds.

    The irony of this sub easily reflects the hypocrisy of Irish society.

  18. When did this come in? I lived in Toronto for several years and remember frequently hearing about Vancouver having a lot of ghost houses, apartments etc from people buying them up and just sitting on them. Toronto has some too, though BC had a reputation of being especially bad for it. 

  19. Has it worked? Are Vancouver rental prices going down?

  20. The “fair deal” scheme encourages vacant housing

  21. No it is your property, maybe reason’s why it is empty.

    It is yours you should not have to explain yourselves and extra tax on it, perhaps it was left to you and no money to renovate but not ready to sell it as it was family home etc

    Like car tax, if you use it you pay road tax, if you don’t you can declare it off the road

  22. No.people who.own the house already pay taxes and they bought the house they can do what they want with it.

  23. Yes absolutely should be taxed and increased yearly if continuing to be left vacant

  24. We have a vacant property tax budget 2024 increased it to 5 x LPT while not the 3% it is in Vancouver we still have it.

    The biggest issue is we do not have near the number of habitable vacant homes as everyone believes, too many are tied up in probate or the fair deal scheme.

  25. With many, many exceptions. The rate of collection is very low, and only happened at the beginning when many overseas landlords were first stung.

  26. If you can afford to have homes sitting empty you can afford to pay a substantial tax on it. I’ve a friend who is divorced and lives on the west coast. She can’t find a house to buy or rent as they are all empty holiday homes in her area.

    Taxing empty homes makes the market more efficient.

  27. We do already have a Vacant Homes Tax. First time it was payable was November of last year. It’s only 3x LPT (rising to 5x LPT this year), so clearly a lot less than 3% of the value of the property as they seem to do in Vancouver.

  28. There already is a Vacant Homes Tax and it is 3 times the local property tax. The property must be 1. Residential and 2. Livable.

  29. There’s fuck all vacant property.im areas people want to live.

  31. Is there anything you people don’t want to tax. I heard some people inhale more oxygen when they breath, let’s tax that too.

  33. Plenty of purely capitalist countries do this. Yet wannabe-socialist Ireland, judging by these comments, has a problem with taxing vacant properties and forcing them back to the market. So, banning AirBnB is okay (and I disagree with that, it’s a tiny impact anyway), but taxing the vacant, and even more so – derelict, is not okay (and I disagree with that – they SHOULD be taxed).

    The argument of “I own this, I don’t have to explain shit re what I do with it” is a moot one: you also own your car – you still have NCT, insurance, car plate, and if you don’t – here come the consequences. You are taxed in many direct and indirect way, yet somehow doing what the country doesn’t want you to do with real estate (hoarding it for example) should be free?

  34. We should have the most aggressive form of property tax on the planet.

    Your primary family home? 1% tax.

    Your second property / holiday home / rental property? 5% tax

    3rd? 10% tax. 4th? 15% tax. 5th? 20% tax.

    Make it so this includes any properties any business you own or operates as well, looking at board seats and such. This would make it impossible for any individual to own 10 properties or more in any capacity. Any commercial real estate business would be kept strongly neutered, stopping them from dictating the market in any way. Would immediately stop vulture funds.

  36. We should do it. Its not gonna solve the housing crisis overnight, but nothing is gonna solve the housing crisis on its own right now.

  37. Absolutely, house beside me has been left vacant for about 19 years now. It’s becoming structurally dangerous and an eyesore. Can’t let the children play in our back garden because of what is living next in next doors garden. The owner or the council don’t care – they should be taxed until they do something

  38. This would also drive the rental price down out of necessity to rent.I can hear the capital companies whining already………

  40. I have a vacant cottage I bought for 10 grand 20 years ago. It is unlivable and I do not have the money or time to put into it. I am a single father with a 6 year old and a 3 year old. I do not have a pot to piss in and I am living week to week. Inheritance wise it’s all I have to give my children. Why should I be punished for the governments refusal to build social housing?

  42. Yes , the amount of rural properties falling apart because some old lad wont sell or rent mammies old house is beyond ridiculous .

    Me and the father in law counted 12 in our townland . Theres more properties occupied by the ghost of mammies memory than there is properties occupied by living souls .

  44. Not a fixed fee, 3% as per letter.  We should have it here too in Ireland.

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