Rules for non UK citizens buying houses in the UK?

[flanajb]

Does the UK have a similar tax regime in place for non UK citizens for buying houses like those in Jersey or The Isle of Mann?

I don't think we do, and I find that staggering, especially, given the rate of house price inflation and the fact many people in and around London are unable to afford a house of their own.

I do chuckle to myself when I hear the Governor of the BoE saying he is concerned about an over cooked housing market. I think the horse has bolted on this one. I think the gate opened around 10 years ago.

I have a friend who lives in London with his Wife and 2 Children in Clapham, owns a one bed flat and cannot afford to buy a 3 bed property so he has to rent a 3 bed. He earns over 100k

Something is very wrong

 

[NickWelford]

Trouble is, the only way to bring house prices down is to vastly increase the supply. However, there are far too many vested interests in keeping prices high. I don't own a house, but pretty much everyone who does will not want prices to drop even 10%, let alone the 50% that is needed.
One solution is to build many many houses to rent, making rents much cheaper, also make tenancies longer term. Then fewer people would be chasing houses to buy. There will be a bubble bursting some time soon, look at the huge drop in house prices in the states. However, where demand stays high, such as anywhere commutable to London, prices will stay high. I think rates for high price houses should be much greater. If you can afford a house over a million, then you can afford to pay 10k a year in rates. Can't be all that many old ladies living in houses they bought in the 60's!!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The problem there is that it's London. I bought in November, and after a good re decoration I'm not going to get back what I paid - I have to move and this Cornwall, where we are told everything is going up.

 

[Jacob]

Too many incentives to buy property over and above the need for housing/workplaces.
Taxation would help - inherited wealth to be treated the same as income frinstance. Rates to be related to value, increased if under occupied.
Buy to let is a crazy privilege - just makes things worse by giving the better off a free ride on the back of the worse off - who in turn become dependent on benefits and the tax payer i.e. we all subsidise landlords and inflate house prices. Half the people I know seem to live off rents without doing anything much to deserve it.
Crack pot free market theory makes it difficult to correct. We need to role forwards the state and take more control if the necessities of life.

 

[petermillard]

...I have a friend who lives in London with his Wife and 2 Children in Clapham, owns a one bed flat and cannot afford to buy a 3 bed property so he has to rent a 3 bed. He earns over 100k

Something is very wrong

I'd suggest that he could easily afford a 3 bed property, just not in Clapham; if he isn't prepared to move out of the area in order to buy a larger property, then it sounds like he's doing the next best thing - using the currently inflated market to let his 1-bed in order to subsidise their rental of a 3-bed, no?

 

[RogerS]

...... If you can afford a house over a million, then you can afford to pay 10k a year in rates.......!

That is such tosh. There are many many people...not necessarily OAPs who have lived in the same house all their life and the value could well be over a million. Now where are they going to find £10k a year in rates...which is £14k in actual pay before tax or £16k before tax and NI.

I would get rid of rates completely and then charge people for the services that they actually use.

The Buy-To-Let market is helping out considerably in making houses available for rent.

Of course there are some from the Loonie Left who think that the State should own everything.

 

[Woodmonkey]

I agree with Jacob, it's not non UK residents buying houses that's the problem, it's greedy buy to let landlords. Put a stop to that and there would be plenty of houses to go around.

 

[t8hants]

The plain answer as with all the consumption problems, is a planned and sever drop in population, say 1% per year for the next fifty years. With the demand gone house prices will drop to the point abandoned estates can be cleared and high density housing thinned out. The modern timber frame brick skin house has a planned life of 75 years, with an expected occupancy of 150 years so a fair few estates will be nearing the time for demolition anyway. Unless we are counting on a World War to thin out our population we don't need it, and in 40 years the pensions time bomb will have resolved itself as all us Baby-Boomers will be dead anyway

 

[Jacob]

.....
The Buy-To-Let market is helping out considerably in making houses available for rent.......

What nonsense of course it isn't.
Exactly the opposite - would be rentiers get in there first and out price the people who actually need to live in the houses, and get a free ride on their backs. Parasites.
Would be different if they built to let.

 

[MIGNAL]

Once again it's the South East that is overheating. Property prices elsewhere have only seen very modest increases, hardly keeping up with general inflation. Of course it may have a knock on effect and the so called feel good factor. Housing is one of the very, very few 'products' where increasing prices (inflation) is often seen as being a good thing. No one would welcome the price of bread or the price of cars increasing by 10% + per year. As stated previously, far too many vested interests - including governments that want to get re-elected.
As far as the 'free market' in housing is concerned: it doesn't exist. Nor will it ever. It's about as free market as the Banks.

 

[RogerS]

I agree with Jacob, it's not non UK residents buying houses that's the problem, it's greedy buy to let landlords. Put a stop to that and there would be plenty of houses to go around.

That is such utter nonsense. How does that work? A house comes up for sale. If anyone wants to buy it and they have the money or can get a mortgage then its open to anyone. Doesn't matter if it is owner-occupied or buy-to-let. At the end of the day the house is going to be occupied.

If there was any case for concern then it would be the number of empty properties in London owned by rich Russians and Arabs.

 

[Jacob]

I agree with Jacob, it's not non UK residents buying houses that's the problem, it's greedy buy to let landlords. Put a stop to that and there would be plenty of houses to go around.

That is such utter nonsense. How does that work? A house comes up for sale. If anyone wants to buy it and they have the money or can get a mortgage then its open to anyone. Doesn't matter if it is owner-occupied or buy-to-let. At the end of the day the house is going to be occupied......

It'd be occupied at a lower price if buy-to-let parasites weren't permitted - encouraged even.
Haven't you ever played Monopoly Roger? If someone buys a property you need then you know you are going to be f...ed over. Real economy very similar.
We have a whole generation of people now supplementing their pensions by screwing their neighbours.

 

[Woodmonkey]

A house comes up for sale. If anyone wants to buy it and they have the money or can get a mortgage then its open to anyone.

So it's not open to anyone then is it Roger? If the demand wasn't so high, prices would be more reasonable and then it really would be open to anyone. Around where I live it's getting on for a quarter of a million quid for a 2 bedroom terraced house. That's just not sustainable. As Jacob said it's simple economics, if you could only buy a house if you were going to live in it then everyone could own their own home. Such a basic human need as shelter should not be used to make money out of people.

 

[MIGNAL]

It's not just supplementing their pensions though. An old friend now boasts to me that he's up to 15 properties (and rising) that he lets out. He does very little actual work because he also has a full time job! He's one of the true original self certified who could barely afford to pay the repayments on his car. His whole mini empire built on a pack of lies. He really should be doing time for fraud, that is both him and his mortgage agent. Both complicit. Instead they are both looking at a very tidy sum that will see them long into their retirement. They can't lose. My friend started buying property again a couple of years ago, he had come to the decision that house prices weren't going to go much lower. He's recently bought a 'trendy' apartment for £65,000. It's already let out. 7 years earlier the exact same apartment had sold for £175,000. Someone else had taken all the 'hit'.

 

[RogerS]

Oh my God....talk about wingeing. Sounds more to me like sour grapes.

 

[MIGNAL]

I take it you condone all the fraud then Roger? I guess that type of fraud supports your crooks 'free market' philosophy.
As for sour grapes: afraid not. I don't haven't the slightest bit of envy for his riches. You see he's extremely 'poor' in pretty much every other aspect of life. I simply don't think that blatant lies should be rewarded. You obviously do Roger.

 

[RogerS]

What fraud? Where is your evidence of fraud? If you think there is a case of fraud then why haven't you reported it to the police?

And do not presume to lecture me or tell me what I might/might not be thinking.

You're dead right. Not sour grapes at all. Very sour grapes, more like.

 

[MIGNAL]

Oh!! We are getting rather upset aren't we.
Here Roger: a little lecture and definition for you to mull over:

Fraud: Deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.

Grossly exaggerating your actual annual income to a financial institution counts as fraud. Does in my book. Perhaps if you are of the more laissez faire variety I guess you think it all fair gain and f. the rest. The only problem Roger is that the tax payer footed the bill.
Dabbled a bit yourself Roger?

 

[Drudgeon]

A lot of people seem to get very bitter about the buy-to-let market, perhaps I am one of the 'parasites' you talk of???

I am 35 yrs of age with 2 young's kids, 10yrs ago when we purchased our first house, I was working as a joinery for a company, we live in London, well actually just outside if you want to split hairs, after a couple of year, it became apparent to me that my wages as an employee would never increase at the same rate as the cost of living, I also realised that pensions would be worth little, if anything by the time I retired, and therefore took some saving left to me by my late father and but deposits on two flats which we have rented out ever since, yes we often use this income to subsidise our life when moneys short, and in the long term, these properties will be my pension, the very pension that I will have made NI contributions towards my whole life, but the pension that will be worth nothing, it will not even cover my bills in 30yrs time.

So I really don't appreciate being classed as a 'parasite' thanks.

The problem in this country is population, there are too many people, unfortunately people are living for far too long, and immigration is too high, in the south east, you can barely get school places, doctors appointments are a 3 week wait and NHS dentists are non existent.

Cut the population to the point that the supply/demand difference is not so bad,

The other thing they can do, stop building in the south east, concentrate on building up north, if more properties are built, housing is more affordable, push more of the countries industry and business' up there, give them financial incentives to trade from the north, the population wouldn't be such a problem if it wasn't concentrated and a section of land 10% of the size of the country.

 

[Jacob]

Sympathise about your pension but you aren't doing anything for anybody by being a landlord. You are not needed unless you actually build houses.
I notice that those who say the population is too big don't usually see themselves as surplus to requirements. Otherwise they could just throw themselves into the nearest pond. Simple!