Latest news with #secondhome
BBC News
5 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Shrewsbury artist outraged by second home tax bill on only house
A woman unable to move into her new home during repairs received a bill for £3,000 in extra council tax because the local authority deemed her a second home Rose from Shrewsbury received a bill totalling £6,603.20 - Band F tax plus a 100% second home premium - despite only owning one property. "The whole thing felt like a little bit of a stitch-up, and quite malicious", she said.A spokesperson for Shropshire Council, which has since removed most of the extra charge, said the second home premium was "charged for any period that the property is not occupied as a main residence". Miss Rose picked up the keys to her new home in the Greenfields area in April - but she could not move in as it had no hot water or lived with her parents in Wolverhampton for a few weeks while works were completed, during which time the bill April, second home owners in Shropshire have had to pay double the usual council tax. Miss Rose said she had let the authority know that she would not be moving in fully until the hot water and heating were fixed."At no point, in any emails or when I filled in online forms, did I say I was a second home owner," she said, adding that she had "just tried to be open and honest about what my living situation was.""It just opened the floodgates."Miss Rose said she felt like "it's up to me to prove to them I don't have a second home." Miss Rose, a former journalist, is now a self-employed artist who specialises in lino-cut income is not stable, fluctuating between £6,000 and £24,000 each year - which she said made the second home premium on her council tax unaffordable."If I'm very lucky, I'll sell a painting here and there - I'm just not the right person to go after," she said."I don't have a string of lovely cottages in Wales or anything like that." Shropshire Council has reduced the bill now the repairs are it has told her an extra payment of £118.57 remains due in for a two-week period in council stated the house was furnished during this time, meaning it qualified for the second home tax - something Miss Rose said was "totally irrelevant.""You could have one chair, you could have four chairs - I really don't know at what point a house becomes 'furnished'," she said. "I found it quite offensive to be put in this second home owner bracket and quizzed on how many sticks of furniture I've got." A spokesperson for Shropshire Council said "the classification of a second residence is a furnished property that is not a person's place of residence."While there is an exception for property in need of or undergoing major repair to make it habitable, this exception does not apply to substantially furnished dwellings." Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Telegraph
23-06-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
How inheriting a second home became the ultimate embarrassment for millennials
Are you planning to leave a second home to your children? Email: money@ For generations, Britons have aspired to buy their own piece of the countryside – a second home to provide the backdrop for family holidays year in year out. But the dream of owning a second home is slowly dying. Data from Hamptons shows the percentage of sales to a second home buyer has fallen from 2pc in 2016 to 0.8pc in 2025 – the lowest figure on record. Buying a second home has never been less of an inviting prospect, not least because successive tax raids have made buying and maintaining one increasingly unaffordable. For millennials, who are buying later, and 'maxing themselves out more than previous generations', buying a second home is all but impossible, says Aneisha Beveridge, of Hamptons. 'This limits their ability to withdraw money from their main residence to purchase a second home, or indeed save up enough money on the side,' she says. 'Likely, money which was enjoyed or invested by previous generations at the same point will be tied up for longer by millennials' and Gen Z's mortgage bills.' According to lawyers and wealth managers, it seems no one particularly wants to inherit a second home either. 'We do see an increased resistance to inheriting real estate and a preference for cash gifts,' says Natasha Southam, of law firm Seddons GSC. 'Owning numerous properties can be seen as burdensome and prohibitive to a mobile lifestyle, which is often a priority.' Younger generations are also embarrassed at the idea of owning a holiday home, says Mark Wood, of Everest Funeral Concierge and former chief executive of Prudential, who is accustomed to helping families with end-of-life planning. Many fear they may be accused of hollowing out communities by hoovering up housing stock and inflating house prices. 'I remember the local antagonism in Wales years ago when people would vandalise properties. There is a similar anxiety among younger generations,' Mr Wood adds. 'Do they really want to be the ones turning up in their estate car and unloading stuff from a central London branch of Waitrose?' The millennials who stand to inherit such homes often grew up in the age of low cost airlines and a social media-driven desire to see as much of the world as possible. 'If you can go to Lisbon for £15, why would you want to spend four hours driving to Devon?' adds Mr Wood. The twilight years of baby boomers will mark one of the biggest wealth transfers between generations in centuries, Ms Southam says. Baby boomers account for £2.89 trillion in housing wealth alone, Savills data shows, and the lion's share of that wealth will likely be passed to their descendants. But consensus among experts is that inheriting a second home is more hassle than it's worth. 'A lot of people underestimate the admin burden of inheriting a second home,' says Sam Grice, of Octopus Legacy, a succession planning firm. 'You've got the general upkeep of the property, and they might have to continue paying a mortgage.' Anyone inheriting a second home will also have to navigate a potentially eye-watering inheritance tax bill and, following changes brought in this year, pay twice the rate of council tax. Inheriting a second home also comes with a sting in the tail for would-be first-time buyers, who have been kept on the rental market by surging house prices. Indeed, the average age of a first-time buyer has crept up from 30 to 34 since 1980, according to Hamptons data. Chancellor Rachel Reeves raised the stamp duty surcharge from 3pc to 5pc for second home purchases, a move seemingly aimed at giving first-time buyers an edge on landlords. 'But let's say you're renting in London, and you inherit a third of a Cornish home. If you then go and buy your own property, you'll have to pay an extra 5pc in stamp duty,' says James Ward, of law firm Kingsley Napley. 'I often suggest that people don't give property to children until they've bought their own home.' In addition, arguments can erupt between siblings – where there is a disagreement as to how to share a holiday home, or even if any of them want it in the first place. 'We tend to draft ownership agreements between families, but it's a liquid asset. What happens if someone wants to take the money out?' says Mr Ward. Mr Wood, of Everest Funeral Concierge, adds: 'Unless siblings are close and have a lot of money, it leads to disputes – what weeks you take, who is allowed to use it and who pays for repairs. It's a constant battlefield.' Sometimes it is the parents who are pushing for children to inherit properties they are, at best, agnostic about. 'They become the backdrop for family holidays and memories,' says Mr Wood. 'People want these places passed down because they represent childhood, and they want their grandchildren to have the same experiences.' There is also some evidence that Labour's war on second home owners is working as intended. Jennie Hancock, of West Sussex buying agency Property Acquisitions, says second homes forced on to the market by tax changes are indeed being snapped up by downsizers. 'The lack of suitable properties to move to has been a major deterrent for downsizers in recent years, but as second home owners sell up, downsizers are finally seeing the opportunity to make their move,' she says. In any case, boomers whose pensions will soon be subject to inheritance tax following Ms Reeves's maiden Budget are increasingly seeing second homes as blows to be softened. 'We are seeing more people with second homes taking out equity releases as part of their inheritance tax planning,' says Adam Canavan, of Bowmore Wealth Group. 'The same rules apply to second homes in Europe, but rather than just releasing equity, we are also seeing people sell those properties altogether. In both cases, the goal is the same – to reduce the value of the taxable estate and ultimately pass more wealth on to their family.'
New York Times
23-06-2025
- Business
- New York Times
A Contemporary House Soars in Rural Rhode Island
For years, Amale Andraos and Dan Wood didn't need much when they escaped to their ramshackle second home in rural Rhode Island. Simply having a few days off was all they needed. Ms. Andraos and Mr. Wood are the founding partners of WORKac, a New York-based architecture firm with an international mix of projects. Ms. Andraos was the dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation until 2021 (and is now dean emeritus) where Mr. Wood also taught. In addition, they are the parents of two children, Ayah, now 15, and Kamil, 12, so leisure time has always been in short supply. Nevertheless, when they were visiting Mr. Wood's parents near Hope Valley, R.I., in 2008, they happened to learn that one of the neighbors was selling a prime 22-acre parcel of land. The private property was nestled against a river and surrounded by undeveloped forest and state-protected land. It came with a house, but not one they liked. 'The house was a mess,' said Ms. Andraos, 52. 'It was a hunter's log cabin from the 1950s that they added onto in the 1970s and 1980s,' said Mr. Wood, 57, noting that the whole structure was in a state of decay. When they visited the site, however, it was so idyllic they couldn't pass it up — they purchased it for $500,000. 'We bought it for the land,' Ms. Andraos said. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Daily Mail
07-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Is Angela 'Two Homes' Rayner paying the council tax surcharge on her grace-and-favour second residence?
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner was last night facing questions over whether she is paying her own council tax surcharge on her second home. 'Two Homes' Rayner moved into her four-bedroom, grace-and-favour residence in Admiralty House in December – four months before her Local Government Department started levying an extra 100 per cent council tax charge on second homes. Official records of MPs' expenses show that when she entered the Government, Ms Rayner designated her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency home as her 'primary residence', and her pre-Admiralty home – a rented London flat – as her second home. That allowed her to claim back the £1,621 council tax bill on the London flat from the taxpayer as one of the housing costs reimbursed by Commons authorities. But if she is still designating Ashton as her primary residence now, the £2,034 council tax bill for Admiralty House doubles to a whopping £4,068 if classed as a second home. And, as a minister living in an official residence, she would have to pay both that and the £3,338 bill for the Ashton house herself – a total of £7,406. Ashton does not attract a second-home premium because she has family members living there permanently, but questions have been raised as to whether or not she is paying the full £7,406. Tory Shadow Minister Richard Holden asked the PM and the Chancellor if they were paying council tax on their Downing St flats as primary residences, and was informed that they were. If she is still designating Ashton as her primary residence now, the £2,034 council tax bill for Admiralty House (pictured) doubles to a whopping £4,068 if classed as a second home But on asking the same of Ms Rayner, he was stonewalled with: 'The Deputy Prime Minister's council tax responsibility is properly discharged.' In a letter to Ms Rayner, Kevin Hollinrake, Shadow Secretary for Housing and Communities, asked if she had evaded the surcharge by 'flipping' her primary residence designation. He said: 'If the minister in charge of council tax has dodged the super-tax by 'flipping', this raises serious concerns about the ethics and integrity of Labour ministers.' She became known as 'Two Homes' Rayner after this newspaper revealed she shuttled between two council properties early in her marriage. When her office was asked if she was paying a bill of £4,068 in London and £3,338 in her constituency, a source said: 'The administration of council tax for Admiralty House is for the Cabinet Office and Westminster Council, as has been the case for successive Secretaries of State.'
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
10 Best States To Invest in a Second Home
If you've already dipped your toe into the world of real estate with the purchase of your home, you may be looking to add to your portfolio with a second home as an investment property. However, the opportunities to make this investment profitable are not the same everywhere, as some states offer more affordable homes than others. Explore More: Check Out: To determine the best states to invest in a second home, Deluxe Holiday Homes evaluated states based on average house sale price, 30-year mortgage rates, average down payment percentage and disposable income. For the purposes of this study, lower income-to-mortgage ratio percentages indicated better affordability and greater viability for second home investment. Here's a look at the best states to buy a second home as an investment. Average house sale price: $219,861 Estimated mortgage payment: $1,633 Monthly disposable income: $1,996 % of disposable income spent on mortgage: 81.8% Average house sale price: $259,430 Estimated mortgage payment: $1,819 Monthly disposable income: $2,144 % of disposable income spent on mortgage: 84.9% Trending Now: Average house sale price: $236,678 Estimated mortgage payment: $1,699 Monthly disposable income: $1,957 % of disposable income spent on mortgage: 86.8% Average house sale price: $209,333 Estimated mortgage payment: $1,530 Monthly disposable income: $1,712 % of disposable income spent on mortgage: 89.4% Average house sale price: $158,255 Estimated mortgage payment: $1,315 Monthly disposable income: $1,446 % of disposable income spent on mortgage: 91% Average house sale price: $217,707 Estimated mortgage payment: $1,610 Monthly disposable income: $1,757 % of disposable income spent on mortgage: 91.7% Average house sale price: $257,276 Estimated mortgage payment: $1,802 Monthly disposable income: $1,945 % of disposable income spent on mortgage: 92.63% Average house sale price: $238,797 Estimated mortgage payment: $1,728 Monthly disposable income: $1,853 % of disposable income spent on mortgage: 93.3% Average house sale price: $200,266 Estimated mortgage payment: $1,520 Monthly disposable income: $1,624 % of disposable income spent on mortgage: 93.6% Average house sale price: $201,708 Estimated mortgage payment: $1,512 Monthly disposable income: $1,542 % of disposable income spent on mortgage: 98% More From GOBankingRates 6 Popular SUVs That Aren't Worth the Cost -- and 6 Affordable Alternatives 8 Common Mistakes Retirees Make With Their Social Security Checks This article originally appeared on 10 Best States To Invest in a Second Home
