Isle of Wight Council cabinet members have approved both the introduction of a second home tax and a revised empty property charge — though a final decision will not be made until later this month. If approved, second homeowners will pay 200% council tax on their second property, from April 2025, as well as council tax on their main property elsewhere. County Hall says the move could generate an additional £4.2million per year. Speaking at a meeting on Thursday, Councillor Ian Stephens, cabinet member for finance, said it would be ‘rather churlish’ to miss an opportunity to hike the fees, given the council is calling for more money from the government. Cllr Stephens said he didn’t feel the charge was outlandish and called it an opportunity, passed down by the government in its Levelling up and Regeneration Bill. Councillor Julie Jones-Evans, cabinet member for regeneration and business development, said the premium would drive for a sustainable economy while the council waits for proper funding and said County Hall had no choice. Councillor Jonathan Bacon said, while it is recognised second homeowners do contribute to the Island’s economy, in areas where there are lots of second homes it causes a big issue and impacts the availability of local accommodation. Exemptions to the council tax hike are being finalised by the Government. Meanwhile, charges for empty properties could now kick in after 1 year, not 2, subject to a final decision later this month. The council has written to the owners of empty Island homes, offering advice and guidance, said Councillor Stephens, but without much success. The empty property tax could make an additional £88,860 a year. Full Council will make the final decision on 28th February.
SECOND HOME OWNERS SET TO PAY 200% COUNCIL TAX FROM APRIL 2025
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Great idea, about time, but there should be NO exemptions, exemptions is just another way to fiddle the system and not pay.
They will just change them to holiday lets and pay no council tax. They will also get small business rates relief. These homes would need to be available for holiday lets on a certain number of days each year but there ways around that. The council will end up bringing in less money.
All here are missing THE POINT, insomuch as why are we charged c.tax?
Answer for the cost of services by the IW Council.
So it should never be on the amount of homes you have but how much that home will incur expenses for the council.
So, imo, at worst they ought to only pay the full 100% of c.tax.
Any more is just a stealth tax on wealthy and not something that the IW council should do.
I bet they are taken to court and loose costing US all hundreds of thousands later on down the line.
Why wait a year.. do it this April
bye bye to any money coming to the island. greedy council
This will either generate more tax for the council to squander or better this will mean a lot more homes come onto the market for islanders
It will do neither.
They will just change them to holiday lets and pay no council tax. They will also get small business rates relief. These homes would need to be available for holiday lets on a certain number of days each year but there are ways around that. The council will end up bringing in less money.
There are about 2000 homes on the market at present. Fill your boots.
Majority of second homes used by mainlanders would not be affordable for Islanders to buy, they won’t be let to tennants because the council and government are negative and unsupportive to landlords . With ferry prices on up then mainlanders will come less often and therefore spend less £s on the island in local businesses. So where council might think make more actually it will be less as mainlanders will contribute less to 1-carparking charge’s,2- pubs/restaurants,3- tourist attractions,4- town shopping etc.More businesses will close,more unemployed so less islanders paying c/tax etc.
Second home owners spend little time on the island, when they do they spend lots more than residents. Lots will sell up, reducing revenue to island businesses. Short term stupidity again. Why is assumed second home owners are richer than ordinary people. Councils incapable of managing finances, simply increase charges to hide their incompetence. When these people sell up, the ferry companies will be hit, result of course crossings increase, meaning island residence suffer.
george says…Why is assumed second home owners are richer than ordinary people
because ordinary people cannot afford second homes george, hence second home owners are richer than ordinary people.
If a house is occupied all year round, just by one person, he/she will spend money each week in local businesses, whereas a second home owner, may only spend money a few times a year in local businesses. 2nd homes are the death knell for local communities.
Nonsense they are to blame for wrecking societies just look at Cornwall and Wales. Villages are ghost towns.
Villages are not towns.
Well they gotta start accruing a decent sized pot for funding bike races, property portfolios and a new floating fiasco etc.
Whether it’s second home owners, locals or government hand outs – it doesn’t really matter to the Council – it’s only someone else’s money to throw around. It’s what they like doing and people unwittingly or not – vote for it.
Another crazy socialist idea. Taxing the go getters, the risk takers who want to better themselves, it’s going back to the 1970s dark ages. They would save a lot more money going after the losers on welfare and those who suffer from so called mental health, a bit of anxiety.
Id love for you to tell a veteran with horrific PTSD a loser as he is on benefits and cannot work due to being scarred from a war zone,you edward,really are a twat!
Rubber Jonny, that’s the reason there is no Great in Britain anymore, little spineless weirdos like you lol. Please carry on relying on the state.
If you can afford to have two homes then you deserve to pay for that. And being most are empty from mainlanders buying them up then the hike they should definitely pay for.
If they can afford 2 houses, they can afford to pay the extra tax.
That will do absolutely nothing to help anyone that is looking to buy an “affordable” property.
It is just a money grabbing exercise that is more akin to the Tories rather than the supposedly balanced “Alliance” who call the shots.
The council will just drop the funds back into the black hole where it will never get seen again.
How about publicly ring fencing the money into a specific area so we can all see how it is spent.
I am not a second home owner but if I were I think I would up and sell and move my holiday home to somewhere where it is appreciated. The island is offering less and less for holidaymakers (and that is what second home owners are)
Will never happen …this is the IWC . Electioneering!! Dangle the carrot, and the soft believers will believe .
About time, to many second homes not being used very often
As usual Backward Isle are behind the times.
So many places have already introduced such charges
it is the only way to deter persons buying up homes and leaving them
empty all year.
Start charging parking permit charges as well and reduce Council tax for
Island residents who actually live on the island all year round.
Sensible.
From a right-wing, capitalist point of view, as you need only one house to live in, second homes are unproductive assets not adding as much value as investing in productive assets, such as companies, would achieve – everyone who likes the true version of capitalism would agree with directing flow of money to more productive assets.
From more leftists, social point of view: roads and other utility lines are the most costly features still managed by council even if nobody lives there, and as owners don’t add to local economy year-round, it makes sense to aim to rebate money in another way.
Very rarely right-wing theories overlap so much with left-wing.
If a property is empty for 2 years, it obviously isn’t needed by the owner and should be a forced sale!
You really are an idiot. You can’t confiscate property that belongs to someone.
Got to be a good idea, and compensate the locals from being priced out of the property market.
Great news… shame it’s not from 2024.. but, still… an achievement
Sounds like a measure just asking to get challenged and end up paying out massive refunds and compensation payments.
Council tax is justified as a contribution towards the cost of providing services.
Assuming larger houses equate to increased service use and hence higher charges is perfectly reasonable, however, the same cannot be argued for second home owners who, by definition, will make lower demands on services.
Whilst it is reasonable to expect second home owners to make a contributions, even up to 100%, charging double under these circumstances could be argued to be punitive and possibly even discriminatory which could form the basis of a legal challenge to the legislation enabling such punitive charges.
Excellent news!
The most rational policy in years
I am second house owner and live on the lovely island for 6 months a year
I contribute to the economy on the Isle of Wight by buying local food, attending the theatre regularly and bring friends over with us. Sadly we like many others will be forced to sell up. I think this is a little short sighted of the Council
And for 6 months it sits empty, just getting mouldy and not doing anything. Preventing a family who need a first home from moving in.
and those local businesses and theatres are deprived of revenue for the other six months, because no one is living there. If it was occupied all year round, then businesses would benefit all year round.
sell up and leave then.
Is this applicable only to holiday/randomly occasionally used properties?
I know of an inherited property that is rented out to a relative temporarily, while they sort themselves out, who would otherwise be homeless.
The ‘tenant’ is paying full council tax and paying all utilities etc..
Well that is a rented property rather than a holiday/second home so it wouldn’t be applicable.
The council’s supposed reasoning is that this extra tax will make people rent out their second homes to locals but that will not be the case. There is no point having a holiday home if someone is living in it.
Rather dumb decision I’m afraid. I’ve spoken to several holiday home owners who have said they are now looking elsewhere to own a holiday home – Spain for example. This will also mean people will not invest in 2nd homes on the Isle of Wight. Many are rented out much of the time and so will mean a strong decline in much needed footfall and tourists for local businesses. Unless rented holiday homes are exempt of course?
What a load of rubbish. Local people would move into them, once the hiked up prices drop to a real level, mainly because of estate agents putting false values on properties that they think will be for second homes.
Spain isn’t the simple option it once was. Those foresighted people who voted for us to leave the EU have now taken away our right to live there freely. We must now apply for a visa to live there and that’s not guaranteed
I am in my late eighties and purchased a ground floor flat in East Cowes some years back to give me place where I could live out the rest of my life in reasonable comfort in a very friendly community which offers me considerable respect.
I have retained a residence on the main land as my wife does not wish to move home.
I just hope that with such increased costs I will find myself driven away.
Just tell the council that your home here is your main residence. There is no way they can show that is not the case. Alternatively, state that the island home is your home and the mainland home is your wife’s home.
I agree with it, they don’t live here, just use it for holidays it won’t affect them if they can afford a second home they can afford the rise in council tax end of!
There will be less revenue for the island as a whole, as people would sell up and go elsewhere. Not a smart move by someone in the council. Agree, better funding from central government must be ongoing.
I think the idea of this is they want the second home owners to rent it out, as there is a shortage of homes to rent. But if they have got any sense they will put it up for sell at the full market value, hopefully a rich elderly couple will buy it, who have weekly deliveries from Tesco, and do all their shopping on line, have a holiday home in Spain, and go every other week to Spain, iow home being there main home. No one in their right mind would rent property the landlord has no rights, and that will only get worse. Or husband and wife could have main property in husbands name second home in wife name that way neither of them own two homes.
What an incredibly out of touch, stupid and short-sighted idea this is.
Second home owners pay all their bills INCLUDING Council tax.
This will not drive down house prices.
What it will do is lose the badly run IWC a hell of a lot of money.
Freeing up these properties will mean many of them will end up rented. Rented to people who cannot afford to buy and will be on benefits. That will require the IWC spending us workers money on Housing Benefits, Council Tax Discounts and handouts. So instead of getting twice the Council Tax revenue, the IWC will get 25% the revenue that it currently gets now. How on earth can they think this is a good idea??
Freeing up these properties will mean many of them will end up rented.
probably one of the most snobbish comments i have read.
you do realise that benefits are paid by the DWP and a claimants money is paid to the local authority by the DWP.
The council will not be out of pocket at all
Wont the Extra revenue just about cover the extra cost of getting kids to school by taxi etc ?
Personally, I’d rather have 2nd homeowners than some of the dregs of society that the Council seem keen to bring here and inflict upon us.
Yes, it’s not ideal having some homes left empty for many months of the year, but, given the choice, I know which I’d prefer.
Probably the best thing they can do to stop people travelling over to
second homes is to make the Ferries unafordable – oh, hang on, they’ve already done that.
unfortunately this is likely yo be negative for the island tourism industry, most of the second homes are not starter homes and this will produce a sharp drop in house calves in 2025 and 2026 as well as revenue in pubs and restaurants, how are people in holiday parks and caravans affected something to blame Chris Jarman for…, there is a lot of waste in the council particularly in social services.
The word “could” is used a lot in this report. Perhaps the council could manage many other services properly, such as the floating bridge, and the waste plant on Forest Road. If it did this, possible, extra income wouldn’t be desperately required.