Revealed: The jet-setting couple who have bought an ENTIRE village in Wales and raised rents by 60 per cent – as locals facing eviction launch desperate protests to stay in their homes
Revealed: The jet-setting couple who have bought an ENTIRE village in Wales and raised rents by 60 per cent – as locals facing eviction launch desperate protests to stay in their homes
27 comments
Sounds like we should permit development of shit loads of homes there to undercut them.
Litter the place with huge flats for locals and new residents alike
Also, the CMA should have powers to force sales in the case of monopolistic behaviour like this
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I’ve always been against rent controls but I think this case is the perfect case for them.
Should be illegal for section 21s to be used within one year of property takeover and rent increases should be limited to 10% to a sitting tenant with higher rate increases requiring one year notice.
And existing tenants should have first refusal to buy their home when the owner intends to sell.
A little bit ironic, the daily mail, owned by Jonathan Harmsworth 4th Viscount Rothermere, a non-domiciled, stately home dwelling, hereditary peer who inherited his wealth from his father and runs his media empire through a series of offshore companies and trusts, publishing an article about wealthy exploitative property owners bleeding the country dry….
Trickle down economics: while the rent may go up, there’s even bigger benefits to living there. /s
There really should be a limit on how many homes you can own.
So you can buy a whole village for (less than) the price of a terraced 3 bed in a non stabby stabby post code of London?
Welsh govt, if it has the power, should put up taxes on buy to lets. Bleed them dry. .
This is a ridiculous way to run housing – letting rich people buy whatever they want has ruined many aspects of society.
No second homes till everyone has a first one.
Everyday it feels like this country is sliding back into feudalism and serfdom.
Housing should be a basic human right, not a store of value or an investment opportunity.
I mean if they’re getting evicted anyway what’s to stop the whole village paying rent and then being forced out…
I’m not suggesting it, but I remember that old joke..
“Come home to a real fire, buy a house in Wales”
This was in a period when 2nd homes were being burned down by unhappy locals.
My aunt owned a holiday home (which she rented out for very reasonable prices and it was rarely empty) in Wales and was recently forced to sell it by the Welsh government. Yet this is allowed
Here i am wondering if the town owners were to succeed to force people out who’s going to move in and be able to afford the new rent prices?
16 houses for £1m? That is a fricking bargain! Then they have the audacity to raise rents by 60%. Only a tory would do that
It wasn’t too long ago that the Welsh had a practical solution to behaviour like this.
While we can criticise the Walsh’s for doing what they are doing, we should be knocking on the doors of the council and Gov’t to find out and put a stop to policies that make it possible for people like them to do things like this.
When people were scalping graphics cards for computers, or tickets for music gigs, people were up in arms and wanted the government to step in make it illegal.
Why is scalping houses legal?
Until the people elect a government that will help them to own a house and deter people from using housing as a business then this will continue to happen.
The rich aren’t going to stop out of good will so the majority need to force them to stop.
These two vultures, Lisa and Chris Walsh, are also on the BBC hiding behind their company name. EMW Developments Limited is only one of their four companies named here.
One of the disabled residents is sitting on a bench outside in the damp with her oxygen tank to protest. It’s utterly disgusting.
It’s a tiny village in Wales. On what planet is £500-750 in rent a month a reasonable amount? This isn’t a location with access to loads of really well paid jobs even if this wasn’t targeting those most in need. And for them to ask the local government to increase rent benefits? Why should we pay taxes collectively towards this to allow one utterly selfish couple to take more trips to Las Vegas like they’re expecting to happen?
Their comments hiding behind one of their multiple companies are vile. I don’t doubt they’re also London landlords considering one of their company HQs is in London despite having other businesses registered near this village.
How could you send a child to Lisa Walsh’s nursery in that village knowing she was doing this to your neighbours and forcing them to suffer just down the road?
I hope each and every resident goes on a rent strike. These two are preying on the elderly and infirm. They’re arguing that they should be able to steal from taxpayers to fund a luxury lifestyle. They are morally bankrupt and should learn what it’s like to actually work for a living instead of draining others whilst contributing absolutely nothing to society.
Landlordism is destroying this country and returning us to feudalism. Lisa Walsh and Chris Walsh are just tip of the iceberg, but what a tip that is.
I don’t think there’s a country in the west in more need of an actual revolution than the UK. Our ruling class treats us with utter contempt and we lap it up. We pride ourselves on tolerating and even celebrating it.
Our energy firms just spent winter ripping us off while energy bosses raked in the cash, and all our media had to do was mention immigration and we completely forgot about it. We are angier at desperate people arriving in boats than the people whose actions and policies have been having a disastrous impact on our lives, communities and country for decades, now.
The ruling class has nothing to fear from a few chanted slogans and waved banners. They won’t stop until they’re made to stop.
I mean the wife looks like an OF model and the husband looks like a bald frankensteins monster.
It would be interesting to see how they got so much capital by 30 as the article says they have an investment firm, own a nursery, buy to let properties as well as property management.
The UK as a whole is a fucking tiny island. There needs to be a limit for only one person to own a house, at a maximum two. Its insane how unregulated the housing market is
The greedy fucks are more than likely mortgage free on these purchases too….
“We aren’t bad landlords” they say as they increase rents by 60% and serve section 21’s on what appears to be an area with a lot of vulnerable people…..
I get Landlords want to make a profit but don’t piss on people and tell them its raining. You don’t get to price gouge and still claim to be good people and expect people to agree.
Landlording in general should really just be banned, by whatever means that practically entails.
How about a hard limit of 5 dwellings can be owned by any individual?
Or leased homes must be available to purchase at a consistent multiple of the rent?
Or a tax on buying homes that increases depending on how many you already own? 20% tax on the purchase price of a second home, 40% on a third home, 60% on a fourth
So now you say “but what if landlords temporarily make homes legally unfit to be homes, buy or sell a load to another landlord, then make them fit for habitation again and rent them out? Easy: any house that hasn’t had the tax paid can’t be rented out. You have to pay the tax based on the multiple of the rent you want to charge, and the rent has to be fixed at that price or lower for 7 years (Perhaps with leeway for inflation)
The biggest surprise to me is that they’re choosing to rent them out for £600 a month instead of throwing them on AirBnB for £600 a weekend, which is what keeps happening around here.
Why is this entire article focused on the woman in the couple? All the photos, the name dropping and everything else are focused on her. They’re a couple, yet he’s barely mentioned other than as an adjunct to her.