Increasing taxes on empty luxury properties wonât solve the UKâs housing crisis, but removing politiciansâ influence over planning applications could make a big difference, one of Londonâs most prominent property advisers says.
Trevor Abrahmsohn, the founder of Glentree International, an estate agency focusing on prime properties in north-west London, told Spearâs that taxing house owners who leave their properties vacant wonât help reduce the housing shortage in the country.
âYouâve got to look at why there is a shortage. There is a shortage because the planning process is too political,â he said. âIf you take every empty house of these wealthy streets, it wouldnât make a dent on the [problem] â thereâs not enough of them.â
His comments follow reports by the Guardian that a third of the houses on the most exclusive part of the Bishops Avenue in north London â dubbed Billionairesâ Row â are left empty. In response, the London mayor, Boris Johnson, said town halls should increase council tax on owners of empty homes, but Labour said this wasnât enough.
Abrahmsohn, however, thinks higher taxes wonât solve the problem, but making sure that planning permissions donât depend on politicians could. âYou have to depoliticise planning. Itâs the planning inspectorate of the department of the environment that should make the decisions on planning matters, not councillors, whose main concern is getting re-elected at the next elections and who turn down perfectly good schemes in order to curry favours with their electorate,â he told Spearâs. âPlanning matters should only be concerned with planning matters, not politics.â
He added that owners have the right to keep their property vacant if they want. âWe are in a free country and surely the basic right of each individual who has paid taxes to buy assets is to choose to keep those assets underutilised,â he told Spearâs.
âWhy should this be any different than with other assets? If the owner of a boat hasnât used it in the past nine months, are we going to confiscate it because some people need accommodation? And if somebody says, âMy family canât get around and public transport is not easy but this man hasnât used his car,â are we going to confiscate his car?â
Read more on Abrahmsohnâs stance on Capital Gains Tax from Spearâs
Read more on Abrahmsohn and Bishops Avenue sales from Spearâs