Government must get a grip on the scourge of second-home ownership
SIR – In your leading article (February 16), you suggest that British society has long aspired to be a property-owning democracy.
That is fine, but property should be in the singular, not the plural. Policies in the decades since the stock market crash of the Eighties have encouraged the purchase of property as an investment, to the detriment of many.
I have two sons who live in Denmark and Singapore, respectively. In the former country there is what is known as the “garden tax”; in the latter, to become a second-home owner, one must put up a 50 per cent deposit on the new property. Both systems keep down inflationary costs while restricting the multiple ownership of these social assets.
R A White
Harpenden, Hertfordshire
SIR – If the Government were serious about making the purchase of a house easier for first-time buyers, it would properly address the problem of stamp duty, preferably by abolishing it. All readers will know people who cannot afford to buy or move because of this unfair levy.
Diarmaid Kelly
London W11
SIR – The necessary houses are still there; they haven’t been bulldozed. If young people can’t afford them, it is because many have been taken over by the buy-to-let sector.
Les Sharp
Hersham, Surrey
SIR – As the parent of two middle-class, millennial London renters who have given up on ever buying a home, I despair whenever I drive through the Green Belt.
It is time we accepted reality: there is plenty of grass in this country, and we should build on it.
Martin Lewis
Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire
SIR – Some years ago we sold our house in the Netherlands and retired to North Wales. Selling the house in the Netherlands was fast and efficient. We agreed a price with the prospective buyers; a local notary witnessed a provisional sales contract, and the buyer paid a non-refundable 10 per cent deposit. This is a standard practice that effectively eliminates the possibility of gazumping.
Buying a house in Britain, by contrast, was an incredibly stressful process involving two sets of solicitors, with no certainty that the purchase would go through until the last moment. Surely it would be a simple matter to rationalise the process.
James Lee
Abergele, Conwy
SIR – Had Brian and Charlotte Paton moved to Queensland, Australia, and bought a house (Letters, February 15), the process of conveyancing would almost certainly have been completed within 30 days of exchange of contracts. Standard contracts contain a “time of the essence” clause.
DA Willcox
London SW18