Almost 30 homes a day have been flipped from primary residences to second homes or holiday lets during the past year, according to analysis of local tax data by the campaign group Generation Rent.
Many of the hardest-hit locations are coastal holiday spots such as Scarborough in North Yorkshire and South Hams in south Devon or popular countryside places such as Copeland in Western Cumbria, where more than 1 per cent of housing stock is no longer primary homes.
Dan Wilson Craw, the deputy director of Generation Rent, says: “High nightly rents and the lack of tax and regulation have fuelled an explosion in holiday lets at the expense of people who just need a place to live. In many parts of the country that is forcing people to move away from the places they grew up, and leading to shortages of workers.”
Between 2021 and 2022, the number of second homes in England increased by 3,556, to 256,913, while the number of holiday lets increased by 7,153, to 73,624. Since the pandemic started there are 25,317 new holiday lets and second homes, the campaign group reports.
Today MPs are due to debate an early day motion from Rachael Maskell, Labour MP for York Central — a city which she says has more than 2,000 short-term lets — allowing councils to be allowed to issue temporary local licences for short lets with the ability to cap the number of short-term holiday lets in areas of housing shortage.
Maskell says: “My bill will give local authorities the power to determine how it licenses lets, including the creation of control zones to limit or ban ‘Airbnbs’. Further to this they will be able to raise revenue from holiday lets and control antisocial conduct with the ability to remove licences where conditions are breached. Legislation is long overdue.”
In Cornwall between 2019 and 2022 the number of furnished holiday lets grew by 3,036 according to the data from Generation Rent. The South West and East Midlands lost two in every 1,000 homes to the holiday sector between 2019 and 2022, according to the data.
Oliver Monk, a Conservative councillor for Newquay Trenance in north Cornwall and head of housing and planning for Cornwall council, says: “This highlights something that has been decades in the making, and that is not building enough homes for local people to buy or rent.”
The issue is exacerbated by private landlords flipping from long-term renting to short-term holiday letting and second-home owners selling up to capitalise on high house prices, he says. “The accumulation of which is a lot more people knocking on our door looking for emergency accommodation.”
The government has included plans to enable councils to double the council tax charged on second homes from 2024 in its Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, which is going through parliament. From April 2023 the government has also tightened up business rate regulations to ensure that homeowners don’t leave properties empty while pretending to let them to holidaymakers.
There has also been talk of changing legislation so that homeowners would need planning permission to let out properties and for registration schemes in which homeowners will be forced to register how they use their properties in England.
Elsewhere in the UK governments have been more stringent: in Edinburgh short-term let owners have already been told they need to apply for planning permission and a licence to operate, while in Wales local authorities can increase council tax premiums on second homes by 300 per cent from April with business rate rules on holiday lets twice as tough as in England.
LOL double council tax for someone who can afford a second home. Worst case scenario is they pay 600 a month instead of 300. For someone who can afford a 200-500k overhead.
This country has become a bad place.
I was shocked when checking our local newspaper and saw the number of planning applications for changing homes into rental properties, (Cairngorms National Park).
There were none this time last year.
Double council tax on second home.
Triple on third.
Quadruple on forth.
Etc etc etc.
build, build, and then build some more
​
Once you have done all make it law those homes have to be owner occupied.
​
Finally build yet more, under the same legal turns
Always such good news on this sub.
Damn I’m glad I’m not subscribed and just check in occasionally.
The UK is a fucking disaster.
Houses near me are either being bought as second homes or bought to become fancy AirBnBs. These are very fancy houses (easily north of £500,000) but it still represents an issue as more houses are lost to the short term rental market. People see houses as investments, not as a vital necessity. The likes of AirBnB need serious regulation and we need to build far more affordable housing and social housing to redress decades of poor forward planning. This won’t be solved overnight but we will be in for a huge crisis in a few decades time when we have generations of pensioners who still need to rent properties to live in.
Locals in my area fought tooth and nail against hotel construction nearby
Can’t have it both ways lol. Best way to stop this is to build more homes and hotels.
The change to the taxing system for private landlords (owning one or two rentals, not ltd companies) has caused this.
Have the rental income added to your gross pay and suffer high tax, or go the short term route and dodge it much more easily through irregular payments.
The policy to add rental income to gross pay (without offsetting it against the mortgage cost of the property) can cause the property to either get sold, often to huge corporate landlords, or be converted to short term lets.
Neither are good.
9 comments
Article contents:
*Carol Lewis, December 9 2022, The Times*
Almost 30 homes a day have been flipped from primary residences to second homes or holiday lets during the past year, according to analysis of local tax data by the campaign group Generation Rent.
Many of the hardest-hit locations are coastal holiday spots such as Scarborough in North Yorkshire and South Hams in south Devon or popular countryside places such as Copeland in Western Cumbria, where more than 1 per cent of housing stock is no longer primary homes.
Dan Wilson Craw, the deputy director of Generation Rent, says: “High nightly rents and the lack of tax and regulation have fuelled an explosion in holiday lets at the expense of people who just need a place to live. In many parts of the country that is forcing people to move away from the places they grew up, and leading to shortages of workers.”
Between 2021 and 2022, the number of second homes in England increased by 3,556, to 256,913, while the number of holiday lets increased by 7,153, to 73,624. Since the pandemic started there are 25,317 new holiday lets and second homes, the campaign group reports.
Today MPs are due to debate an early day motion from Rachael Maskell, Labour MP for York Central — a city which she says has more than 2,000 short-term lets — allowing councils to be allowed to issue temporary local licences for short lets with the ability to cap the number of short-term holiday lets in areas of housing shortage.
Maskell says: “My bill will give local authorities the power to determine how it licenses lets, including the creation of control zones to limit or ban ‘Airbnbs’. Further to this they will be able to raise revenue from holiday lets and control antisocial conduct with the ability to remove licences where conditions are breached. Legislation is long overdue.”
In Cornwall between 2019 and 2022 the number of furnished holiday lets grew by 3,036 according to the data from Generation Rent. The South West and East Midlands lost two in every 1,000 homes to the holiday sector between 2019 and 2022, according to the data.
Oliver Monk, a Conservative councillor for Newquay Trenance in north Cornwall and head of housing and planning for Cornwall council, says: “This highlights something that has been decades in the making, and that is not building enough homes for local people to buy or rent.”
The issue is exacerbated by private landlords flipping from long-term renting to short-term holiday letting and second-home owners selling up to capitalise on high house prices, he says. “The accumulation of which is a lot more people knocking on our door looking for emergency accommodation.”
The government has included plans to enable councils to double the council tax charged on second homes from 2024 in its Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, which is going through parliament. From April 2023 the government has also tightened up business rate regulations to ensure that homeowners don’t leave properties empty while pretending to let them to holidaymakers.
There has also been talk of changing legislation so that homeowners would need planning permission to let out properties and for registration schemes in which homeowners will be forced to register how they use their properties in England.
Elsewhere in the UK governments have been more stringent: in Edinburgh short-term let owners have already been told they need to apply for planning permission and a licence to operate, while in Wales local authorities can increase council tax premiums on second homes by 300 per cent from April with business rate rules on holiday lets twice as tough as in England.
LOL double council tax for someone who can afford a second home. Worst case scenario is they pay 600 a month instead of 300. For someone who can afford a 200-500k overhead.
This country has become a bad place.
I was shocked when checking our local newspaper and saw the number of planning applications for changing homes into rental properties, (Cairngorms National Park).
There were none this time last year.
Double council tax on second home.
Triple on third.
Quadruple on forth.
Etc etc etc.
build, build, and then build some more
​
Once you have done all make it law those homes have to be owner occupied.
​
Finally build yet more, under the same legal turns
Always such good news on this sub.
Damn I’m glad I’m not subscribed and just check in occasionally.
The UK is a fucking disaster.
Houses near me are either being bought as second homes or bought to become fancy AirBnBs. These are very fancy houses (easily north of £500,000) but it still represents an issue as more houses are lost to the short term rental market. People see houses as investments, not as a vital necessity. The likes of AirBnB need serious regulation and we need to build far more affordable housing and social housing to redress decades of poor forward planning. This won’t be solved overnight but we will be in for a huge crisis in a few decades time when we have generations of pensioners who still need to rent properties to live in.
Locals in my area fought tooth and nail against hotel construction nearby
Can’t have it both ways lol. Best way to stop this is to build more homes and hotels.
The change to the taxing system for private landlords (owning one or two rentals, not ltd companies) has caused this.
Have the rental income added to your gross pay and suffer high tax, or go the short term route and dodge it much more easily through irregular payments.
The policy to add rental income to gross pay (without offsetting it against the mortgage cost of the property) can cause the property to either get sold, often to huge corporate landlords, or be converted to short term lets.
Neither are good.