Second homes and tourism taxes in Wales: It’s fair play to pay

Yes spit on article indeed Fed up of hearing negative attitude to second home taxes from property owners, agents and media when it is one of the drivers of shortage of affordable rented properties too.

When this proposal was first announced, BBC Wales sent a reporter to Llandudno to test the reaction of tourists strolling along the promenade. Inevitably it was only a small sample, but only one elderly couple expressed hostility to 'having to fork out even more' when they went on holiday. The rest said that a levy of around £1:25 a night struck them as insignificant, one commenting that she'd be quite glad to pay towards the maintenance of such a beautiful place. I think reports of adverse reactions to this levy have been overstated. Levies of this sort are common in various places across Europe, and something essentially similar has been implemented in my native Manchester for a while now, and without any noticeable controversy.

It does seem to be a very small minority of people that have problems with tourist tax anywhere in the world. Knowing that I was helping to support a countries culture and environment by paying a small charge would actually encourage me to visit somewhere.

Spain has a good idea to deal with second homes etc. https://uk.yahoo.com/news/spain-property-tax-british-tourists-eu-134749815.html

Mr. Downs is right that the emphasis regarding tourism and holiday homes should be on protecting and safeguarding local communities from the impacts of both. It seems self-evident that this is a primary duty of any national government (including the Welsh Government) or local authority. He is equally correct in arguing that such communities should be helped to become economically self-reliant, even prosperous, without having to rely almost exclusively on the Faustian pact with tourism, whose disadvantages clearly outweigh its benefits, especially in Welsh-speaking rural or coastal communities.

It’s a very well reasoned article. I’m a second home owner, my wife is a native Welsh speaker I am a learner. I’m happy to pay my council tax but I don’t really understand why it’s necessary for me to pay a premium for services I use less than full time residents. In Pembrokeshire, this money is not used to create affordable housing as the policy states it should be but is simply absorbed into the local authority budget. A small tourist tax seems entirely sensible and spreads the load.

This ignores the elephant in the room , there are insufficient jobs in Wales , particularly well paid ones . There is no right to live in the area you were born , it was always accepted that often you would move away for work and return if you wished . You If the Welsh government of the last 25 years had put some effort into concentrating on supplying the huge customer on its doorstep and producing a dynamic economy as a result then they wouldn’t be grotting around in every area trying to dream up ideas for more tax or more fines to generate income , this approach will harm the industry and will not produced the results expected . It is naive to believe that these extra taxes will be put to good use , we know they will often be wasted , a stronger fairer Wales is just a politically emotive tag .

I’m a second home owner in a small touristy place in Gwynedd, my parents live fairly close and the house is useful for keeping an eye on them as they age, but we’re also tied to the place in England that I’ve lived in for over thirty years because my mother in law is in her nineties. I speak Welsh and I view myself as being a part of my community in Wales. We’ve been subject to a 150% council tax surcharge for a couple of years now. We bought our place in the early 2000s and at the time the village was thriving, football team, rugby team, theatre and college, Welsh was widely spoken in the several pubs that were all frequented by locals. It's very different now and that saddens me. Is it second home owners that are to blame? I don’t know to be honest, certainly many of the second home owners were a part of the community, and some of them had cash to splash in restaurants and pubs and providing business to local tradespeople, a lot of them have now gone, particularly the ones who had the bigger houses and thus saw their council tax go up by the largest amounts, but it’s often not locals that have bought the properties, it’s retirees/ downsizers from outside the area, the local youngsters seem to leave because there are few career opportunities for them and the opportunities there are don’t provide the financial stability needed to get a mortgage. i don’t mind paying my extra council tax if it’s going to help to keep the Welsh language and culture alive but so far as I can see, it isn’t doing. If anything it’s pushing down property prices and making them more attractive to people from outside the area who either don’t work or can work remotely. They’re first home owners but they don’t speak Welsh, most of them in my experience evince no interest in learning about the language or the culture and furthermore they’ve moved to rural North Wales because they’re not the sort of people who value pubs, restaurants, etc. in short, I’m not against the enhanced council tax or the proposed tourist tax, but we need to beware the unintended consequences. Any measure needs to be thought through carefully and I’m not sure that either of these measures have been.

I agree with labour every working person should donate all their wages to labour and then labour can give us pocket money. Are politicians wages means tested? Are their expenses means tested? Did king Charles pay inheritance tax when he inherited the throne? Did prince William pay inheritance tax when he inherited the princes crown. Where do all the taxes go, when paid?

A quote from the past, 'On the whole, second homes are a visible and perhaps convenient scapegoat whilst the less tangible underlying causes of 'community decline'-a failing economic base and the changing nature of family life-are less visible and are becoming more difficult to address [...] for politicians-in particular-the occurrence of second homes provides an opportunity to present local problems as being externally driven, caused not by failures in the immediate economy or by misjudged policy interventions, but by the greed and carelessness of outside interests'. (Gallent, Mace & Tewdwr-Jones, 2005; pp.39 &222)

Great article. Communities should be self-sustaining, but many fail to support their own services and businesses. Take St David’s, for example: instead of shopping locally, many residents rely on Tesco home deliveries from Haverfordwest, leaving local shops struggling. Similarly, pubs and restaurants are almost entirely reliant on visitors to stay afloat. Ironically, the one cause locals seem to unite around is the campaign to tax second-home owners. The reality is that second homes are essential to compensate for the lack of community support for local services and shops. Currently, there are over 20 homes for sale in St David’s, further exacerbating the financial challenges in the area. A more balanced approach is needed to sustain the local economy and community.

So the man that's imposing all these taxes gets away with not paying his share for his second home, strange that🤔

What a load of baloney. What about the non wealthy owner of a second property who bought a semi derelict property 30-40 years ago that no one else in the are was interested in. Then spend the next 15-20 years pouring blood sweat and tears (literally), and a serious amount of £ that they diddnt really have into local trades and materials suppliers. Then variously over the next 20 years used the house themselves, rented it out as a holiday let, then rented it out as a long term let. Only to find that now when they finally can use their home themselves as an escape but can’t now afford it as the council tax is almost 700 per month. And can’t sell it as it’s the kind of property that is way to expensive for someone working nearby to purchase. Oh and by the way, the cleaner who used to do weekly / several cleans per week at around £100 a pop now has seen their weekly clean bookings drop from around 8-10 per week over the April- October period to a total of 8 over the whole summer season of 2024 on account of houses being taken out of the holiday market. Oh and the gardener who has lost about 70% of his weekly lawn care and general gardening jobs for the same reason. Oh, and the local pub that saw it’s takings drop by about 50% over the same period and had to let 2 staff members go, it’s a badly thought out policy that is already hammering the local economy. I don’t think many will disagree that there is an issue, but this isn’t it, it’s a blunt tool to apply to a nuanced challenge that will bring more problems than it will solve. And by the way it’s not me I’m discussing, but a good friend who is beside themselves with worry about this having spent a big chunk of this life on this, and has supported their local community as well.