I find this really depressing..

Last time I saw that was when I applied for my first passport, more than

...

If the economy get so bad that the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation goes under, money won't be worth anything anyway.

Colin Bignell

: The owner still benefits from those services - fire, police, roads, etc.

But presumably, said landlord is already (still) paying for those services through the council tax they are paying on the property they occupy?

Regards,

Not necessarily at all. And you'll noticed I listed those services where the existence of an empty property causes an increase in cost compared to there being no property there at all.

My wife gets it automatically (the payment) and always has done.

Cheers for that, Dave. Holy s*it, better get my finger out.

From memory Police & Fire services are usually about £30 a year (if that.) The bulk goes to the council & thence to schools, etc, which aren't really doing anything for the non-tenants.

Remember when we paid rates? In my case t'was a fraction of the friggin poll tax errr council tax. Grrrrrrr.

them.

They may have the powers but I don't think they have actually been exercised much by any council.

There's certainly incompetence, which is due not to the "juniors" (who deal with the public) but to the 3rd-rate managers, who are all that public service can recruit; the better people go into business, where the "rewards packages" are so much higher than those in the private sector. (This tide may be turning, we may hope, as even the fat cats gradually have to tighten their belts, weeping floods of tears into the upholstery of their company Audis.)

Don't blame the authorities for all this excruciatingly petty bureaucracy: blame the fraudsters who make it necessary. And the arse-covering mentality of ALL management in almost ALL sectors, which

-- as you say -- is gradually hamstringing our society. ["gradually hamstringing" -- a most unsatisfactory phrase, but best I can do off the cuff.]

John

p.s. Dave P said:

You would be *astonished* at the details that various bodies "don't know". Between them, public services and private corporations know more about me than I do. You'd think that at least the public services (DHSS, HMRC, etc.) would share the information, but "they can't"; and "DPA" and all that s**te. (plus arse covering: see above)

Mind: there's always the element of checking: "Yes we know all about you, but we need you to prove a couple of things." Witness, the story on the news tonight about the dolt who was claiming his dead dad's benefits. (He made all of £2000!)

And finally: for every citizen who screams blue murder about the stupidity of "this", there's another who will do so about "that", "that" being the consequence of not doing "this", IYSWIM. They can't win.

Except they are not.

(This tide may be turning, we may hope, as even the fat cats

Why don't they just say that old people can pay less income tax instead?

Obviously the gvt believe this. You can tell with the way stamp duty works.

Buy a holiday home in Wales for 100K and SDLT is nothing (though the fire insurance may be significant)

Move from one end of London to another where an ordinary family home is half a million, and you'll pay over 20K stamp duty.

So if you're a Blair or a Cameron should you buy a holiday flat, or a bigger house in the smoke?

Andy

In a rising property market (once upon a time...) just owning the property brings considerable capital gains. Consider the notorious case of London's Centre Point; empty for years because at that time no rates were payable on empty property, but being un-let meant the /potential/ rent continued to rise in an inflationary market. The rental value underpinned the properly company's borrowing. Once let the value would be fixed until the next rent review and therefore the amount that could be borrowed against the value. As I recall the rules were changed because of the that case.

What I thought was daft was that unlet meant no rates, but as soon as

When a tenant leaves there is generally a period of repairing and redecorating and then of course finding a suitable tenant.

Most of the empty properties are owned by the councils.

Mostly it goes on social services and education.

So what? They are all party hacks and in our case one party has a cast iron built in majority.

In message , charles writes

Maybe if your MP is of the same party as the council leadership.