Edinburgh City Council\u2019s proposed 300% surcharge on second homes and long-term empty properties will not resolve the city\u2019s housing emergency, according to DJ Alexander.<\/p>\n
The council is due to vote on the proposal on 27th August. If approved, someone in a band A property would see their annual charge rise to \u00a34,336, while a band H owner would face a bill of \u00a315,935.<\/p>\n
Edinburgh is estimated to have more than 1,400 second homes and 1,700 long-term empty properties. The council expects the higher charge to raise around \u00a34m a year and said it could help bring more empty homes back into use.<\/p>\n
A report going before councillors said: \u201cAny application of additional council tax premiums across second and\/or long-term empty homes would be anticipated to contribute positively to increasing the supply of affordable housing within the city and may additionally reduce upward pressure on house prices and rents.\u201d<\/p>\n
DJ Alexander said second homes represent around 0.5% of Edinburgh\u2019s 264,990 dwellings and argued that the measure would therefore have little impact on overall housing supply.<\/p>\n
There were 1,850 newbuild starts across all tenures in Edinburgh during 2025-26, including 539 social homes.<\/p>\n
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The city\u2019s social housing waiting list reached 31,589 by July 2026, with around a third waiting more than 5 years to be housed. At 31st March 2025, there were 7,866 homeless households in Edinburgh, comprising 14,219 individuals, including 3,980 children and 2,820 people aged between 16 and 25.<\/p>\n
David Alexander, chief executive officer of DJ Alexander Scotland, said: \u201cWhile this policy appears to be addressing the housing emergency in Edinburgh it is instead a largely performative exercise in that the amount raised is relatively low, it will not substantially increase the availability of affordable homes and will not reduce rents or prices as claimed. Empty houses are something of a red herring as they are often vacant because someone is in long term care or has died and their estate is taking some time to be concluded.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor some of the people who have a second home in Edinburgh it may be their original family home which they have inherited and wish to return to having worked elsewhere in the UK. They may have family ties, or elderly relatives that they must see and that home is an essential component of fulfilling these duties.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alexander continued: \u201cToo often with such policies there is an assumption that these homes are owned by the very wealthy in society when the truth is they can simply be a long-standing family home. Elsewhere in Scotland, for example, you often find rural family homes that are kept as a link to the past but are intermittently occupied.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis policy has the potential to break family ties with home for those who may have retained a family home but work elsewhere. Those who may want to return to Edinburgh when they retire may now be put off. This may not matter to councillors in Edinburgh, but it is unfair and the message it gives is one of an unwelcome city desperate to raise funds from property owners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alexander concluded: \u201cThis policy which is being portrayed as resolving the complex housing situation Scotland\u2019s capital now faces is, in reality, something that is being done which appears to address the housing emergency when in truth this is a sticking plaster to cover a gaping wound. We need action, we need real policies, and we need commitments to increase the volume of housing being built, more encouragement for investment in the private rented sector, and a major push to generate thousands more social housing if the current housing emergency is to be addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edinburgh City Council\u2019s proposed 300% surcharge on second homes and long-term empty properties will not resolve the city\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1171955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,120714,1102,4884,2343,712,11632,16,15],"class_list":["post-1171954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edinburgh","tag-britain","tag-dj-alexander","tag-edinburgh","tag-great-britain","tag-research","tag-scotland","tag-second-homes","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117166563980186259","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1171954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1171955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1171954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1171954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1171954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}