Thought I'd run this up the flagpole and see who salutes! How about dealing with the housing crisis by taxing retired people who hoard excess living space in order to persuade empty-nesters to downsize? This would push house prices down and benefit youngsters currently struggling to buy their own homes as a result of a combination of scarcity and the high prices that engenders. Or we could reduce stamp duty for downsizers to encourage them to sell up free up family homes. But I t looks as though the government is going to achieve the reverse of this in its bid to win grey votes. It has suggested that inheritance tax might be cut so that main homes worth up to £1m could be passed on tax free. This doesn’t encourage downsizing and encourages everyone to buy and keep most expensive house they can as an investment - the opposite of what policymakers say they want. You have to be really clever to produce a policy that encourages the hoarding of housing at a time when the country is suffering from a housing crisis don't you? Eton and Oxford? What a waste!
Are you serious? So your dad has a nice house that he worked his bollox off to pay for through his life. Eventually you and your brother and sister hope to inherit it, this makes you happy as it will help you out. Tomorrow the government says you won't be inheriting it after all because they want most of the value of it.
good,there should be a big cut in inheritance tax,whats the point in paying taxes all your life in order to get a decent home sorted and then have to pay the goverment more perishing tax just so your kids can get to reap the benefits of your many many years of hard work. as for the housing crisis,theres far more to it than any simple politician will ever come up with,all they want is another session in power. too many people on a too small island with too few houses,perhaps youngsters might have to wait a while before getting a house,not like its an ipad is it,perhaps put in some time and effort to get what they want. god,im turning into my fkn dad ffs. :Shamefullyembarrased: .. next stop:sending letters to the daily mail, gah,shoot me now...:Banghead:
Just thinking of ways to help the whole country rather than the children of the privileged middle classes - which would benefit everyone, ultimately. Not trying to punish people but encourage them to downsize. They get to keep the cash to help their kids when they do that so they get on the housing ladder earlier. I did that and my kids are home owners at 18 and 22 instead of 38 and 42 plus. I was one of the lucky generation who was able to buy property in London from the age of 26 so thought it better to share my luck with my kids rather than moan about them being victims of a cruel, harsh world while rattling around in a huge house!
Any subject has the potential to elicit either reaction, I think you'll find (if that observation was aimed at me for posing the question).
Two things: only a very small proportion of estates pay inheritance tax and the government doesn't get "most" of anything less. Forty per cent of anything over £325,000 (£650,000 for couples) at the moment. This may or may not rise after the budget if the Tories put power before fairness.
See :Hilarious: it was aimed at you make you react just as you did it's all a game we can all play, some get more wound up than others :Finger:
The Council Tax payable annually on each house is assessed in bands roughly corresponding to the value of the house (far more roughly than Rates used to be, by the way). The occupier pays the tax to the council. If they are one person living alone, the amount they have to pay is reduced (yes, reduced not increased). Thus there is a direct tax incentive for people to live alone in large houses. This always struck me as a bad policy.
And what are we supposed to downsize to ?? Only a programme of bungalow building, instead of (multi-level) family home building, will trigger a downsize (and so housing release) revolution. But what builder is going to do that? Why build a bungalow, when you can build a bigger value (read profit) house on the same plot ? Older people look for somewhere where they can comfortably live out their lives. Something they can own (because that's the way they're culturally pre-programmed), without having to tackle upstairs bathrooms/bedrooms etc. It's not always just about money for them. Go on...ask me how I know ? ....................Answer = I'm just downsizing my 93 yo Dad. Luckily (extremely luckily in fact) one of those very rare Bungalows came up for sale at the right price, at the right time, in a perfect location for him and me. If it hadn't been for that stroke of luck, I don't know what we'd have done.
Do you or dont you agree with my scenario when the money would be removed from your pocket. How do you define "privileged middle class's" ? Does your dad, living in the previously mentioned large empty 4 bed house that is actually falling down and worth very little count as such. Your whole idea is poorly thought through and indicitive of your politics. If you have to go out to work every day surely you are working class. If that graft earns you £1200 week you are still working class are you not ? The outdated idea that people with money to spend are some how unworthy and privileged is garbage or the worst kind, let it go.
Don't we have the smallest houses in Europe already? How about de populating this was the reason for this thread after all :Nailbiting:
But my observation is correct, is it not Good point. However there are assisted housing complexes too. My own parents exchanged their bungalow for a very nice one and my girlfriend's 87 yo father is in the process of doing the same with his huge house. He will be overlooking a county cricket ground and is even getting cash back from the deal. Parents who did this would free up housing stock and pass on legacies earlier. Google them. Loads are being built.
It's not for Government to decide how big a house you live in. You should be able to move into whatever kind house you wish - at least until you are evicted and slung out into the street by the rightful owner of the property. No one needs more than a cardboard box to live in, anyway ... squatters are big sissies who are afraid of a bit of rain. As for affordable housing for families - to hell with them, if they need a bigger house they should just build one, buy or find one with some old geezer living in it and turf him out. It's not difficult, is it.
I think you're on the wrong thread!! It's a bit late for that surely? And the studied eloquence of the left's argument has convinced me that untrammelled immigration and multi-culturalism are good things so we'd better set about finding homes for everyone here and anyone else who wants to come here.
You old rascal you!! But the government did bring in the bedroom tax remember. So it's not averse to tampering with the housing needs of citizens.
That's nothing. My ducks have to paddle in freezing cold water because I get no allowance to heat their pond - and the button fell off my jacket more than a week ago but no one from the council has been round to see it back on yet.
Don't you love people who want more housing but don't want it near them. How about renewable energy but never want a wind turbine to spoil their view. Vote in a communist government and then they can build huge blocks of flats and make everyone live in them, no problem with housing and no problem with anyone having a bigger house than anyone else. At the same time they could ban Ducatis and make everyone ride a Ural. In fact why don't they make everyone who owns a bike with more than 250cc sell it and fund more teenagers in their quest to buy a moped?
So funny that you have me down as a dyed in the wool (or dead in the head) socialist when most on here lambast me for being a Tory! Anyway, that aside. I have no definitive answers but neither have you, or those in power. I just suggested an idea. Anyone is welcome to use logic and reasoned argument to shoot it down - if they can. But the money being removed from anyone's pocket is not real money, earned through honest endeavour. It's the product of successive governments' failure to address the lack of housebuilding here. A lot of it is about where you live too. People in London, like me, have had cash shovelled into their pockets for very little or no effort. So why shouldn't it be shared out. Look at house prices region by region and I'm sure you'll see my point. And I'm not even saying that that that money should be passed to others, via taxes. Merely that people should stop hand-wringing over their kids' inability to get on the housing ladder while sitting on huge housing equity that they have not been responsible for earning or producing. I think they should pass on he cash they are lucky to have had their houses earn for them early to help their kids now - rather than when they're dead.
