Second home tax rises are not a minute too soon, says Rosemary Goring

To learn that our most senior medical figure was behaving as if she was above the regulations was startling. Not surprisingly, Calderwood paid for her misjudgement with her job.

In light of the shenanigans that would one day shame Downing Street, her error now seems a mere peccadillo. At the time, however, it felt egregiously hypocritical.

In retrospect, I also wonder if some of the condemnation Calderwood faced was a reaction to the idea that the kind of person who can afford a second home feels so entitled they almost inevitably viewed themselves as above the law[2].

Now, let’s be honest: who wouldn’t like to own a bijou seaside cottage where you could bunk off after a long week in the office, to be lulled to sleep by the slapping of waves?

Motorhomes and campervans are fine in their way, but they are simply the proletariat’s best chance of emulating the monied classes’ time-honoured right to head off down the motorway on a Friday evening for their rustic bolthole, hampers filled with wine and boeuf bourguignon fighting for space in the back seat with their off-spring, Labradors and Hunters wellies.

For much of my adult life, the notion of having “a place in the country” – as distinct from living in the country – was the pipe-dream of the stock broker belt, and a staple of almost every upper middle-class novel. It fuelled a thousand magazine features, everyone seeming secretly to yearn for their own mini-Balmoral.

On rural jaunts I would eye up honeysuckled cottages, mentally designing their interiors and gardens to my own taste. An envious colleague once recalled hearing a table of Sloanes in a city pub complaining about having two places to run: “People just don’t realise how much work it entails!”.

How time changes everything. I never used to think there was anything wrong with having a leafy retreat. Now, it no longer feels like an innocent indulgence. Indeed, I suspect it never was.

Instead, buying a second home in an area where there are already too few places to go around no longer seems right. For every such purchase there’s a local with one option fewer of where to live, or with no alternative but to leave the area.

As of next year, the sea-change in attitudes towards such home owners will become tangible, and not a moment too soon. Of the more than 24,000 second homes in Scotland[3], a third are in the picturesque parts of the Highlands, Argyll and Bute and Fife.

As part of the SNP’s rural housing action plan, their council tax will be doubled. In these three councils alone, that can be anywhere between £1400 for a Band D home, to £3,500 for Band H.

In a few regions the old 50% discount for second homes still applies, although the majority now sensibly charge the full amount. A doubling will represent a significant hit and send a strong message. The hope is that this will encourage owners to sell up and allow their house to return to the market, or force them into renting it out long-term, which again will help the local community.

Critics of the scheme fear it will deter investment and drive second home owners to buy abroad. (And where would that be?) Among them is Fergus Ewing, the ever-contrary MSP for Inverness and Nairn, who believes that “these proposals …will drive money out of Scotland, damaging local economies with less money going to local builders, shops and tradesmen.”

I’d have thought the opposite was likelier. The social and economic problems currently caused by a deficit of affordable rural housing is resulting in hollowed out towns and villages that, come winter, are half-empty. As people are driven away from the district, many businesses are left cripplingly short of staff.

You have to ask, what do we want for the most scenic parts of the country? Do we want visitors to be fooled by the façade of a thriving, attractive rural idyll, unaware that behind the glossy front doors lie unoccupied rooms, warmed only for a few short days through the year? Do we want Instagram-friendly postcodes, regardless of the social cost? Or do we want rooted, welcoming places where young folk can make a start, taking jobs in the area and raising their families within a rural community that will otherwise wither without them?

A doubling of council tax will not put off the wealthiest, of that we can be sure. Nor will it make a lofty barn conversion house suddenly affordable to a starter buyer. But perhaps the message a 200% hike sends will make the owners of part-time homes stop and think.

After all, nobody who has spent time in outlying parts of the country can be unaware of the problems associated with lack of housing and access to work. Perhaps Holyrood’s decisive stand will actually encourage some owners to relocate permanently into the district instead of yo-yoing back and forth.

Another laudable part of the plan is to allow compulsory purchase of uninhabited or derelict houses by the local council. There are two such cottages a short step from where I live.

Postcards are occasionally slipped under their doors by would-be purchasers eager to take them on. So far, these pleas have come to nothing, and they stand forlorn and unloved, as they have for years.

At heart, like so much else these days, the second homes crisis is a question of resources: those who own too large a share, to the detriment of others; and those who have too few, and require a helping hand if they are to have a fair chance in life.

The housing action plan won’t solve the problem on its own. It is, however, a good place to start if we are to regain our beauty[5] spots for those who want – and need – to live there all year round.

References

  1. ^ Rosemary Goring: A peek inside the closet of Jane Austen (www.heraldscotland.com)
  2. ^ law (www.heraldscotland.com)
  3. ^ Scotland (www.heraldscotland.com)
  4. ^ Scottish floods show how quickly normal weather can turn extreme (www.heraldscotland.com)
  5. ^ beauty (www.heraldscotland.com)

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