The UK metropolis driving out second house homeowners with double council tax | UK | News | EUROtoday

Once a second house haven, this East Midlands metropolis is seeing the variety of folks promoting up quickly improve earlier than being slapped with a 100% council tax hike.

Leicester noticed one in 31 properties used as a second house in 2022, round 4,412 properties. However, that determine is rapidly declining following the council’s effort to offer first-time patrons with homes.

New information printed final week by the Housing Department discovered the variety of second houses had fallen by a whopping 40% in Leicester to simply 2,624.

From 2025, many cities across the nation will see second houses hit with the elevated cost, as Leicester shall be doubling the council tax for its householders.

The Local Government Association, which represents councils throughout England, spoke of the “desperate need for more affordable housing across the country”, insisting that charging extra is one technique of bringing the homes again to full time use.

Managing director of Knightsbridge property brokers, Luke St Clair, instructed The Telegraph that most of the second houses are being utilized by college students whose dad and mom personal the properties.

He says: “Leicester University is very popular and is good for law, genetics and medicine, so it might be a case of parents buying houses for their children to live in while they study, that they then hold on to.

“That practice is less common now than it was pre-2016, but we are still seeing cash investors, or owners who are purposely leaving the property empty rather than selling because they don’t want the capital gains burden from it.”

Councils throughout the nation have all been granted the facility to challenge the identical tax hike, with many areas making use of this forward of subsequent yr. This consists of doubling council tax on houses left empty after one yr as a substitute of two.

Earlier this yr, Purplebricks property brokers mentioned homebuyers had looked for properties in Leicester 52,000 instances within the house of three months – this compares to the determine of 38,000 in London.

Mr St Clair provides that there are greater than 10,000 properties on the market in LE postcodes, saying the way it has develop into a well-liked vacation spot for professionals trying to transfer inside a commutable distance to London and Birmingham.

“With so many people being called back to offices now, you start to see the benefit of being able to get on the M1 in 10 minutes, which leads to the M69 to Birmingham,” he says.

“You can get to London St Pancras in under an hour, even from Market Harborough, a nice country-ish town with lots of development.”