Big Lender Stops Offering 2nd Home Mortgages

The UK has a housing shortage as we know, with both 2^nd property owners and holiday homeowners or those wanting to being put under ever increasing pressure when buying further properties.

Leeds Building Society, the UK’s fifth largest lender has announced that it will no longer offer mortgages for people wanting to buy a second home.  We expect many other lenders to follow suit.

Buy to let mortgages will expect to continue but holiday home mortgages may not.  We know that holiday destinations such as Devon, Cornwall, Norfolk, the North-East Coast, North-West Coast and Wales all struggle as house prices are pushed out of reach of locals and hospitality workers price ranges.

Already there are additional stamp duty, tax relief restrictions and capital gains tax levies as well as energy efficiency performance targets, fire safety targets, tenants’ rights and  s106 ‘locals only’ purchase restrictions.  There are also moves by many local authorities to charge double council tax to 2^nd homeowners as well as talk of introducing council taxes rather than allowing holiday homes to claim zero (small business rate) exemptions i.e., holiday homes currently pay no council tax or business rates. 

Comment

Whilst we appreciate both lender and government actions to try and discourage people from buying more property to improve availability for first time buyers and locals:

• It penalises those that have worked hard to get where they are financialy and market forces should be allowed to prevail.
• It is successive governments that have failed to ensure that holiday home owners have paid their share of local authority taxes.
• It is also successive governments that have failed to ensure that enough new, affordable housing has been built to deal with demand.