I thought tenants pay their own council tax and not landlords.
1 Like
No tenants are involved in the Welsh council tax changes, which will be applied to long-term empty properties and second homes.
Oh. Thatās good news for landlords then but not so good for others who want a holiday home. What does it mean for those who maybe rent their second home out for most of the year either on long term letās or perhaps as short term holiday rentals, how are they classified?
Or what if they say thatās there main home when itās not and not have to pay extra council tax elsewhere in the UK?
1 Like
The idea behind the āhikeā is to reduce the number of āsecond homesā in Wales by making them to expensive to run for absentee owners.
Presumably, any registered changes to property use, e.g. from āsecondā to āmainā, will be investigated by Welsh councils.
That would depend on the exact terms of the lease. My tenants pay their own + all utilities as stated in their leases.
Will this work the other way too since I have a friend whose main home is near Caernarfon but who bought a flat in London as she works there and obviously couldnāt commute and it made sense to buy rather than rent and she goes home once every other week or so. If council tax goes up for her then sheāll struggle to make ends meet.
1 Like
Your friend will need the advice of a council tax āexpertā.
1 Like
Thank you. Iāll tell her to get onto it.
Just a thought, I wonder if mps have to pay higher council tax for there second homes?
1 Like
I cannot speak for Wales but here, it is a mixture of second homes & older people selling higher value homes in cities & then retiring to our area. They push up the costs of homes & destroy life within villages.
Holiday home owners do not support the local economy like residents do. The village I lived in lost itās bakery, itās school, a butcher from a neighbouring village stopped delivering. The bus service stopped. The Taxi service stopped. The blacksmiths became a holiday home. The closest petrol station became a housing development. The village builder my father had worked for, developed itās village base into a housing development & moved 15 miles away.
It is not just a village, it is also the surrounding towns & villages. holidaymakers do not buy cars locally, so dealerships closed & petrol stations closed or stopped opening evenings. Non seasonal pubs close, shops struggle out of season.
I cannot find a link to the story now, but several years ago. A paramedic applied for & was offered a role as a community based paramedic in the coastal town of Wells next the sea. But having been offered the job, he found that he could not accept it, as his pay as a paramedic meant he could not afford to buy a home there.
Second home owners, plus our local towns & villages becoming retirement homes for older incomers, is changing villages & towns & thus what do young people do? Schools close as older people do not have children & second home owners do not use local schools. Locals find they cannot afford to live there any more. Buisness move a few miles away to areas, where second homes & incomers are not an issue & get local staff. And amenities & services get damaged.
Weve often talked about what weād do if we won a,shed load on the lottery and we think weād not buy anywhere but just hire places around the world and stay there for as long as it interests us and we didnāt get bored. Weāre at the stage where the number of actual personal things that we have could probably fit into a smallish box and things like cloths and cars could be replaced or hired when we moved, if we had done that sort of money. So moving would hardly be a big rigmarole and we could charity off what weā accumulated when we move. Donāt see the need to own a big place at all so it wouldnāt burden local house prices.
1 Like
MPs will have to pay the full council tax in London - AFAIK, there is no āhigherā - but can claim it back as an āexpenseā (lucky them ā¦ 
).
Yes but thatās because they work harder than us and deserve it along with regular pay increases.
2 Likes
Tongue in cheek?
1 Like
They probably claim them on expenses - which means the tax payers foot the bill!
1 Like
A new licensing scheme for people who want to operate short-term holiday lets, such as Airbnb, is also planned.
First Minister Mark Drakeford and Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price made the announcement as made as part of their co-operation agreement.
The changes to planning regulations are expected to be made by the end of the summer and will introduce three new classes of property in the planning system: a primary home, second home and short-term holiday accommodation.
Local authorities will then be able to make amendments to the planning system, āwhere they have evidenceā, to require planning permission for change of use from one class to another.
Under the new system, councils will also have the power to set a ceiling on numbers.
Such a scheme has been a long time coming - earlier may have been better when the most affected communities were still mostly Welsh.
Still, the situation has changed in favour of the Welsh people ā¦ 
1 Like