boris

I don't know what happens in the USA (although Mango Monkey has provided no evidence for his assertion) but generally in the UK, those who have £1m and above (as of November, this was 3,612)  tend to invest it wisely and generally lead contented lives. Cars, houses and starting up a business account for the biggest amount of spending).

Of course, winning enormous amounts of money is going to cause problems and will inevitably put strains on relationships, but I am surprised that as few winners end up in penury or go off the rails as they do.

Yes Jim, it is London-centric but that is where I live, and where the housing crisis is most acute and where intervention needs to happen (along with much of the South east). Perhaps you are looking at it from a perspective where land and property is plentiful, and thus not a problem?

Also, you did not read my post properly. I said that developers committed to affordable or social housing should be given tax breaks. NOT all developers.

How are these two things compatible?

But I'm not really diagreeing with your notion or sentiment as I understand them. I consider housing to be a basic human need and is a candidate for government intervention in the same way that heatlh care and education are. But it a complex balance that is very difficult to achive.

Yes. But home ownership should not be a right. Are landlords having problems renting out their properties?

Yes FC, all very nice but that is the GMP, not the Earls Curt scheme we are talking about. Different Councils too. I might be missing something have read Capcom's plans and out of a planned 7,000 or so "residential units", I can find no evidence of "social provision".

Out of interest, what or how much are the "social rents" you describe?

Tenants are having to pay increasingly large proportions of their incomes on rent though, especially in the private sector.

Are they incompatible?

Jim, I should add that I don't think that your putative landlord who owns 10 properties could be described as "small". One, two or three properties yes, but not 10.

Kevin,

....Perhaps you are looking at it from a perspective where land and property is plentiful, and thus not a problem?.....

 

Also, you did not read my post properly. I said that developers committed to affordable or social housing should be given tax breaks. NOT all developers.

I did read your post properly and while I understand the sentiment and the problem you are trying to solve, I still can't see how you can apply (or why you would want to apply) a UK wide law to solve the problem in London (but of course many in the UK are used that happening).  Also, I happen to live in an extremely expensive city (driven by the oil economy) where people are finding it incredibly hard to get on the housing ladder and where the the rental market is largely provided by the private sector but it is has not reached the level of London or the SE.

Jim

No ownership isn't a right at all. But if the natural state of the free market means that people are without homes, then I feel there is a case for intervention by way of government policy. Yes, those that argue against buy-to-let arrangements seem to forget that this is a source of the supply of housing, not a means of keeping it in short supply.

The bit where you say that "all properties...should be punitively taxed" and the bit where you say "Tax breaks should be given to developers...." 

My wife and I rent out 3 properties, purchased from the proceeds of our regular employment. If we bought another to rent should we be subject to punitive taxes? What if we bought another 2? What if we borrowed the money to invest in a new development? Who decides? What if we sold one?

But that's not what I said Winky, was it? As per my post to Jim above, I said that developers committed to affordable or social housing should get tax breaks, not all of them. So I don't see any incompatibility at all.

Scotland fluffed the chance to become independent whilst the world was watching.... if london could be allowed to be independant the same way from GB/UK.

To which the obvious answer is some form of rent control.

What a silly comment.

Why not Godalming?

Jim, I suspect the kind of change in the law I am talking about would only apply to England anyway. You Scots would be fine, unless the Scottish Parliament thought otherwise.

Plenty of people (not only people in London) think that London should become independent from the rest of the UK - it is certainly wealthy enough to survive on its own, with a GDP of just under half a trillion pounds (or about 22% of the UK total) and exports of £92bn, so perhaps it's not such a daft idea.

But you did say that all properties (except principle place of residence) should be punitively taxed. It must be a meaning of "all" with which I'm not familiar. I'm just saying that giving tax breaks to some developers is not the same as punitively taxing all of them.

Except that by removing the incentive to invest in (and therefore build) such rent-controlled housing, the supply of it will tend to dry up. Playing around with the way current housing is priced cannot stem the inexorable upward pressure on price unless significant additional supply is added to the market, or the number (or wealth) of people who would seek such housing is reduced.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/home...20141223-12cxkw.html

This certainly isn't the way to do it....but given the totally and perpetually corrupt relationship between the New South Wales government and property developers, this comes as no surprise.

Well I think it's a daft idea. No good ever came of separating people into smaller tribes. Whatever the question (and there are some really good ones that demand answers), independence is always the wrong answer. It perpetuates the myth of differential entitlement.

An independent London would presumably have to import any resources it needs. I'm thinking particularly of water which I gather would be a real issue.

Possibly -

allow the nominal value of properties to increase inline with inflation and tax (at 100%) any additional profit made through subsequent sale.

Or - your house/home/property is no longer where you invest to make inflationary profits. Put your money elsewhere - even somewhere where it might justify a growth on investment.