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The news contained in the following reprinted article does not affect Holiday Home owners with properties on Licenced Holiday Home Parks. The benefits, services and protections offered by the Licenced Parks listed within this site are among the top reasons for the popularity of this form of Holiday Home Ownership.
Second-home owners in seaside paradise resort Salcombe are banned from using litter bins or bottle banks unless they pay a £350-a-year bin tax
Those who refuse will be banned from taking waste and recycling to rubbish tip
Holiday home-owners in Britain’s most expensive seaside property location have been banned from using litter bins and bottle banks – unless they pay a £350-a-year ‘bin tax’ or hire private rubbish collectors.
Second-home owners in Salcombe in Devon who refuse to pay up will also be banned from taking their waste and recycling to the council-run rubbish tip under new rules outlined in a warning letter from South Hams Council to 2,000 owners.
The alarming letter – which comes weeks after council tax was doubled – warns owners that failure to register a holiday home with the council or an approved commercial collector is a criminal offence.
Stickers have been placed on street bins in Salcombe with the warning message: ‘No Holiday Home Waste…Leaving your rubbish around litter bins is fly tipping. You will be fined or prosecuted.’
Last night, furious second-home owners in the town – where the average house price is £1.2million – said the bin tax was the latest wheeze by town hall officials to squeeze more money from them.
It comes after holiday home-owners in the pretty Devon town were told their council tax would be doubling to an average of £4,200 a year after the council applied a ‘second-homes premium’ to their properties.
The bin tax means visitors staying at an unregistered holiday property will expose the owner to a £300 fixed-penalty notice if they drop litter in street bins or use council recycling sites.
In its letter, sent to second-home owners earlier this month, South Hams District Council said it was entitled to charge £350 for waste and recycling collections from holiday lets ‘regardless of the type or amount of waste produced.’
It said: ‘These properties are not permitted to use the domestic service funded by the taxpayer. This includes… recycling banks, litter bins and household recycling centres.’
But one second-home owner told The Mail on Sunday: ‘It’s absurd. How on earth will they enforce it?
‘Are council staff going to lurk around litter bins to check the rubbish registration status of someone chucking in a Mars Bar wrapper?
‘I’ve owned a place in Salcombe for 20 years and this is the first I’ve heard of it. They just want to wring more money out of people already facing big increases in council tax or business rates.’
But last night permanent residents in the picturesque South Hams fishing port of Salcombe, where average house prices top £1.2million, back the council.
And one said locals were already ‘dobbing in’ holiday-home owners who try to dodge the bin tax.
Shop manager Pete Ford, 32, said: ‘They won’t need to enforce it.
‘Local people are already doing the job for them by dobbing-in owners of second-home holiday lets who don’t follow the rules.
‘I know a couple of places where this has happened. Residents spot renters slipping out with bags of rubbish and report it to the council.
‘Next thing, you see a commercial waste bin appears outside the property.
‘Of course, Salcombe needs second homes and visitors who rent them. But these places are being run for profit.
‘Owners should pay to have commercial waste collected, like all businesses.’
Boatbuilder Mike Wrigley, 61, said: ‘If you run a business you pay into the system.
‘I see some holiday-home visitors heading on to the street with armfuls of rubbish to dump in litter bins.
‘They don’t want it in their car as they head back up the motorway.’
Controversy over second homes has heightened in recent weeks – particularly in the most sought-after seaside retreats.
Villagers in two picturesque Norfolk boltholes – Blakeney and Burnham Market – last month backed proposed council crackdowns to stop any new-build which is not a main residence.
Please Note:
If you believe that you may be affected by the folling article there are a number of things to consider. Most importantly, do not ignore the concern and hope it will go away. There are numerous favourable tax advantages available from letting your Holiday Home and you may be able to reduce your tax liability by claiming some of these. In fact, many people invest in Holiday Home Lets because it is a very tax efficient investment vehicle. Speak to a qualified advisor or contact us here if you want pointed in the right direction
Holiday home owners’ banking details to be handed over to taxman
HMRC will use international rules to investigate people with holiday lets and ‘side hustle’ businesses
Holiday home owners will have their bank account details scraped by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as part of a global tax crackdown.
From January 2024, rental platforms, food delivery apps, freelance websites and others facilitating various “side hustles” will be ordered to share users’ details – including bank account information – with HMRC as the taxman clamps down on people failing to declare extra income.
Up to five million businesses and holiday let owners are expected to be impacted, according to the taxman’s estimates.
Several platforms such as Airbnb already report users’ income details to HMRC but Dawn Register of accountancy firm BDO said the upcoming change will make the sharing of data “automatic and global”.
She continued: “At the moment HMRC can demand data using its domestic powers. This is going to be broader in terms of geography.” As part of the new regulations, HMRC is implementing new OECD rules that will give it even greater powers to investigate the tax affairs of people earning an income via a digital platform based overseas.
As of November 2022, 28 countries and jurisdictions had signed up to the OECD rules.
HMRC has been clamping down on holiday lets as a pandemic surge in demand for “staycations” caused the sector to boom.
Data obtained in a freedom of information request by estate agents Hamptons shows that the average annual income declared to the taxman for a holiday let rose from £11,800 to £15,600 in the five years to 2020-21.
Earlier this year the tax office targeted 1,000 owners of short-term holiday lets, who it suspected of not paying enough tax, in a “nudge letter” campaign.
Income not captured by the PAYE system must be reported to HMRC through Self Assessment. HMRC is concerned that many who are making money are not declaring additional income as more people join the gig economy.
HMRC said the new rules will “increase customer costs” for some of the businesses affected, but said that it does not yet know the scale of the costs.
The new rules are expected to cost the tax office £36.69m and require twenty-four full-time workers.
A spokesman for HMRC said: “The vast majority of people pay the correct amount of tax. We use various methods, including working with online rental and marketplace platforms, to help make it as easy as possible for people to pay the right tax.”
