Have FG finally noticed we have a vacant properties problem?

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997596#Comment_117997596

Care to deal with the substantive issues or just fancy having a rant about a house you know nothing about.

In this case it is owed by Cork City council. The owner, a single man, sold it to them when he emigrated. Been sitting empty ever since. As an LPT payer and voter in Cork City yes, they are obliged to account to me. That's democracy which seems to be the buzz word for some in this thread.

So yeah - nice fantasy story bro but very far from the reality.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997702#Comment_117997702

The poor unfortunates will be people who have to pay even though they were not the intended targets of the legislation, like the ill/elderly/ people doing up their houses/ people living or working abroad or elsewhere in Ireland/people who cannot afford to do up houses/ probate cases/ people selling homes they don’t live in/people who may not be able to rent or sell their property etc etc etc.

Exempting PPRs with cover the vast majority of these. In other cases eg probate it is very simple to legislate for exemptions.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997720#Comment_117997720

Exempting PPR doesn’t help to distinguish between a vacant/occupied second property, nor why it is vacant and whether that vacancy should be exempt.

You really should offer your legal services to the people tasked with framing this legislation, I’m certain they would appreciate your knowledge. No doubt they would be disappointed you weren’t available when writing the vacant site legislation.

YipeeDee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997696#Comment_117997696

Yeah you go right on ahead and do that.

We are not living in Soviet Russia the State has no right to arbitrarily deny a citizen of the property they have bought and paid for.

If you or the State want the right to tell me when I can come and go from my own property?

You can come and pay a share of my mortgage repayments.

Until that day happens? I’ll come and go from my own property as I see fit.

And when my family are reared and I take off for a well deserved, five year trip around the world, I’ll send you a postcard son.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997731#Comment_117997731

No of course exempting PPR doesn't help distinguish between whether a property is vacant or occupied - hence why it all NPPRs should be liable unless it can be demonstrated that the property is exempt/occupied.

i.e exactly what they did 10 years ago with the NPPR charge. It was not rocket science then, so no reason it should be now.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997756#Comment_117997756

Nobody is suggesting arbitrarily denying you or anybody else of their property. That is just ridiculous.

It's a taxation measure designed to incentivise/deter certain types of investment and management of scarce resources. Routine stuff in all developed societies around the world and lambasting it as unconstitutional or a breach of your human rights is ridiculous.

And if you take off round the world for 5 years and leave your PPR empty, good for you, nobody is suggesting you should be taxed for it.

If you head off round the world for 5 years and you wish to leave both your PRR and your second property empty during a housing supply shortage, then nobody is suggesting you be deprived of that right, merely that there is an associated cost in exercising it.

YipeeDee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997781#Comment_117997781

In other words a punishment tax for daring to be absent from your own property that you have bought and paid for.

And have already paid taxes on your whole adult life.

You Communists and your contempt for private property rights of citizens really know no bounds.

So tell me, how long would a citizen have to be absent from their property before your punishment tax kicks in?

6 days? 6 months? 6 years?

I’ll do a deal with you. When I reach my retirement days and jet off on my five year trip around the world.

If six months is time limit for your punishment tax. I’ll make it my business to fly home from wherever I am in the world and on the last day of that six month period I’ll spend a night in my property.

And if I keep two properties I’ve bought and paid for, I’ll come home a day earlier and spend a night in my second property.

And then I will jet off again for another five months and 5 or 6 days.

Will that suit ya?

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997843#Comment_117997843

That would suit me no problem, and i’m not suggesting denying your right to do so if you wish.

The point of it is most people affected by the tax probably won’t go to such extremes and they’ll either pay the tax, or rent out the property or sell it.

i.e engage in the behavior that is exactly what the tax is designed to encourage.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997704#Comment_117997704

The council cannot sort its own gaffs out and these are easily tracked on a single spreadsheet and you think they are going to be able to sort out the thousands of other empties in private hands.

Well good luck with that.

DubCount

Why just a vacant property tax. What about a vacant room tax. Some capitalist pigs are daring to use rooms in their house to sit in - punish them - someone needs that room to sleep in.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997877#Comment_117997877

Out of interest how high should the tax be ?

Anything less than a couple of thousand a year won't move many people to change anything?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997781#Comment_117997781

I do not inform the government of my whereabouts.

If I am in Timbucktoo for the whole of next year, my house will sit empty and still be my primary residence as far as they are concerned.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997913#Comment_117997913

Don’t have such a strong view on that. My interest in the subject is more in Trying to understand/debate the very weird reluctance and opposition to it from almost all quarters.

in fairness to YippeeDee, his argument seems to be “its my property and I’ll do what I want with it.” It’s honest, and it’s an argument I can understand.

its all the other stuff about there is no point In introducing it because there are no vacancies/or it’s too complex/or poor granny in her nursing home etc etc that I find frustrating. It’s all nonsense.

this article flies a kite on the amount: https://www.thejournal.ie/vacant-property-tax-3-5441551-May2021/

It is understood that government is assessing if triple or quadruple levels of the Local Property Tax should kick in for apartments that have been vacant for more than six months. 

YipeeDee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997877#Comment_117997877

Well a little over three years ago I was that idiot.

When political figures and housing campaigners were all over the media imploring people with second properties to rent them out to help ease the housing crisis. I stepped up.

Did what I foolishly believed was my civic duty and let out my property for the first time in 20 odd years.

I never had any previous ambition to be a landlord, the thought had never even crossed my mind.

My property had never stood idle, since moving out of it 20 years ago to the countryside. I used my property in Dublin 2-3 nights per week to break up the long commutes up and down to Dublin to work. I also had multiple members of my family live in my house throughout the same period.

I had zero ambition to change that.

But sucker that I was, I decided to forego my three night weekly commute break and do what I thought was the right thing.

And let out my house in order to try to do my bit.

Well, It didn’t take long for the very same political figures and housing campaigners who had implored people to rent out second properties to start knitting up ideas for laws to strip us of our property rights, along with being screwed sideways on taxes. And of course vilified as a greedy parasite for being a landlord which they had implored us to become in the first place!

If you have a second property and don’t rent it out, in the middle of a housing crisis, you’re a terrible person.

If you have a second property and answer the call to let it out, you’re nothing but a greedy parasitic landlord.

It appears you’re damned if you and damned if you don’t with some people.

Now they’re talking about implementing laws to take away our rights to move our own children into our own property.

And locking landlords into indefinite tenancies, in other words, once you’re a landlord you’re never getting out.

And of course now it’s your punishment tax for those of us who do find a way to escape and take back our properties.

Well sod that. I’ve learned my lesson the hard way.

Under no circumstances will I be:

1. Forced to remain in a profession against my will. (Forced to remain a LL)
2. Have my Constitutional right to have my children live in my own property taken from me.
3. Sell the home that I bought and paid for before half of these politicians and housing campaigners were even born!
4. Pay a single cent more in tax than I am due to pay.

As far as I’m concerned, when I get out of the rental market, I’m done.

I’ll never let out my property again.

Time to find other suckers to step up and be the patsy.

YipeeDee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997952#Comment_117997952

PS Schmittel, I’m a woman, not a man. But your statement is otherwise correct.

I do believe, “It is my property and I’ll do what I want with it”…because I’ve bloody well paid through the nose for the privilege.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117998018#Comment_117998018

I'm in agreement with most of what you say about treatment of LLs, and I'm on record in other threads of this forum saying a vacancy tax should be accompanied by policies of removing all rent controls, removing conditions to which LLs can terminate a Part IV lease, fast tracking evictions of tenants in rent arrears, removing Central Bank lending rules, allowing non recourse loans and fast tracking repossessions of all properties with mortgages in arrears.

Whilst you label me a communist, I'm hardly Karl Marx.

You say:

Under no circumstances will I be:

1. Forced to remain in a profession against my will. (Forced to remain a LL) - A vacancy tax does not force you to be a LL against your will
2. Have my Constitutional right to have my children live in my own property taken from me. A vacancy tax does not prevent you allowing your children to live in your property. By definition it is occupied.
3. Sell the home that I bought and paid for before half of these politicians and housing campaigners were even born! A vacancy tax does not force you to sell the property, it simply adds a cost to holding it if you choose to keep it empty.
4. Pay a single cent more in tax than I am due to pay. - Taxes increase all the time, and new taxes are created. Nobody s forcing you to pay more tax than you are due.

To refer to "your punishment tax" and wail about the above as if it is part of some sort of burn the rich revolution is ridiculous. It's a fairly simple taxation measure that is not designed to target you and unlikely to cost you anything.

mrslancaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117998160#Comment_117998160

Not sure i understand what is the actual purpose of a vacancy tax...is it just to increase the general revenue pot of county councils, or is it to penalise owners so they either make that property available to the sales or rental market?

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997307#Comment_117997307

Money talks. That you won't take the risk on property, but are full of ideas what people should do with theirs. Speaks volumes.

The reasons why people leave property empty are many and varied. Unless we know why they are doing that, any proposed solutions are likely to fail. We should ask them, not the people with no experience in property and more importantly not willing to take the risk.

I have no doubt making it punitive to hold on to property will certainly make some sell it. But since they are already paying (and losing) money by not renting but still having the expense of lpt and other costs, they seem well able to weather a tax aswell.

I suspect it all it will do it is further reduce supply in the rental market.

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117998218#Comment_117998218

That you can't discuss actual points I raised but have to resort to having a dig based completely on your imagination speaks even louder.

lossless

No, fg haven't noticed anything new. Neither have SF, ff or any of the adjacent crew.

What they and their friends did notice, however, is that nothing makes money like property. Be it rental, commercial, development, zoning, selling, buying, inheritance or what have you. The balance sheet of this entire nation is dependent on it.

And nothing remotely approaches the fruit extracted from rooftops. Nothing.

The Extraction Process

Step 1.

Increase price pressure. Allow practically unhindered inward migration and firesales to foreign investors. Rub hands briskly.

Step 2.

The defense. Inextricably link any opposition to racism/nationalism/what they're having. That's something the gombeens will swallow and self-perpetuate. Lick lips.

Step 3.

Look busy. Do actually build some extra roofs, but make sure that it's equally matched with step 1. One to one if it can be helped. Laugh.

Step 4.

Falsify problems. Make sure, and this is of the utmost importance, that conversation never, I repeat, never, be turned away from it being a "supply problem". It must always be a "supply" issue. Sprinkle in "vacancy rates", a dash of "density building", a pinch of "zoning". It doesn't matter, just keep em spinning around, dizzy = money. Congratulate each other.

No, I don't think vacancy rates have anything to do with anything. It's fluff. The statistics and policies back up everything I say. CSO, ESRI, county councils, just go and educate yourself.

Expecting the gang to kill their golden goose, to end this lucrative housing crisis, is insanity.

Year after year after year, the same stories going around and around and around. It's hardly a wonder why, now, is it?

Bannasidhe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117998160#Comment_117998160

Added to that, if the property is occupied, be that by family or someone who commutes, it isn't vacant. It's occupied.

The main focus of campaigners are those property owners who own multiple places with no intention of renting them out not the people who have gone abroad for a while or the accidental LL or hands tied by fair deal.

It's the empty for decades and allowed to rot, the whole street earmarked for future sale once it can be cleared due to dereliction. It's the shops in town centres allowed to disintegrate driving customers away to more salubrious locations.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117998214#Comment_117998214

It is to try and make the most efficient use of the available housing capacity.

In a housing crisis which is constantly explained by a chronic lack of new build stock, one would normally expect the existing stock to be used near maximum capacity.

Is that the case in Ireland?

Some numbers:

Total Stock of Residential Dwellings - 2,052,429

Average Household Size - 2.75

Capacity = total stock x average household size:

Housing Capacity: 2,052,429 x 2.75 = 5,644,180

Population of Ireland: 5,011,500

Spare Capacity: 632,680

We have a pretty massive spare capacity given the supposed scale of our "housing shortage".

Put simply, the purpose of a vacancy tax is to try and make better use of that spare capacity.

YipeeDee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117998160#Comment_117998160

Apologies Schmittel, perhaps I didn’t make my point clear enough.

When I referred to being forced to remain a LL against my will.

That was with regard to the other laws these housing campaigners and politicians are knitting up to lock landlords into “indefinite tenancies” which I had mentioned earlier in my post.

Ultimately leading to once you make the mistake of becoming a LL you’re never going to get out.

Same with their plans to prohibit LL’s from allowing their own children to move in to their property.

The very same campaigners and politicians that 3 years ago implored citizens with 2nd properties to let them out.

Have done nothing but try to strip property owners of our rights ever since.

This vacant tax punishment law is just another punishment in their arsenal.

You said yourself most people won’t go to the extremes I am prepared to avoid this.

They’ll either pay the tax, sell up or rent out their property.

Again it’s about stripping property owners of their rights.

Furthermore, I no longer have any belief whatsoever that these punitive laws are designed to somehow solve the housing crisis.

You don’t ask someone to do you a favour and then hit them with a hockey stick and vilify them for doing what you asked.

If they want to motivate people to rent out their second properties and help, you don’t implement laws that crucify them for doing what you asked.

This is all about stripping away private property rights. Plain and simple.

The only positive thing I shall be taking away from my time as a landlord is that I know I did my very best for tenants I’ve had. And I’m glad to had such lovely people in my much loved home. I have recently two new lovely tenants and I shall absolutely honour my lease agreement with them.

But after that I’m out, there’ll be one less rental property on the market.

And it will be thanks to every last one of those housing campaigners and politicians and their punitive laws.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117998382#Comment_117998382

Why are you using the average household size (2.75) figure?, that’s the number of people per household, not the amount of space available for people to live in. Where are the variables for room numbers and location in your equation?

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117998426#Comment_117998426

Again, you'll get no argument from me on you points you raise about the treatment of LLs. I was specifically talking about a vacancy tax.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117998452#Comment_117998452

I'm using the average household size figure as over 5 million people and 2 million houses/apartments it is the most logical figure to calculate current national housing capacity. If you have a better suggestion I'm all ears?

We're talking about taxing vacant units, not vacant rooms. For the purposes of the point I was making - responding to mrslancaster - room numbers and location are irrelevant.

YipeeDee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997704#Comment_117997704

1. I’m not your “bro” I am a woman.
2. You had made previous references to “people hoarding property” and owners either “using it or losing it. This led me to believe that the vacant house beside you is owned by a private citizen who purchased his / her own property. Rather than a state owned council property. When it comes to Stste owned properties, mismanaged and left idle. I am absolutely in agreement with you. There’s circa 5000 of them empty the length and breadth of the country. If the government actually wanted to help solve the housing crisis those 5000 properties could be quickly and relatively cheaply turned around to put roofs over heads and go a long way to taking pressure off the system. But instead of that they’re busy knitting up ever more punitive laws to strip private property owners of their rights to the properties they’ve bought and paid for.

mrslancaster

The councils who have lots of vacant dwellings around the country will hardly have to pay it, so it appears the purpose of a vacancy tax is to force private residential property owners to either become landlords, or increase the supply of places for sale.

Why not restrict citizens to ownership of a single dwelling then? Afaik that would be unconstitutional.

So, a vacancy tax, well, that'll teach 'em...they should never have spent their own after tax money on a product that was freely available for any citizen to buy...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117998382#Comment_117998382

ednwireland

Are council properties included? I remember reading councils were tardy about returning their own properties.

YipeeDee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117998160#Comment_117998160

Would just like to clarify one other point you made, with reference to some “burn the rich revolution”.?

For the record, I am in no way rich. I was born and bred in a working class area of Dublin and every stick that I own I worked my ass off for and paid my taxes on.

Its not about just burning “rich” people, it’s about burning every property owner who has busted their butts to buy their own property. Nobody should be obligated to account for their absence from the property they’ve paid for and own. They have a right to be able to come and go from their own property as they see fit.

And if the State wants to take that right away and make people account for absences from their own property, well then let the State pay a share in that property owners mortgage payments!

Then and only then should a property owner have to account to the State about their absence from their property.

Otherwise, the State should mind it’s own business and with 5000 empty council properties around the country clearly it needs to do just that.