Land Reform Needed

[Giles]

You seems a bit confused Giles. You ask “What problem?” as if I haven’t described the problem in detail, and then go on to answer the exact problem i’ve been on about! It is a LAND problem you state but actually it is a SPACE problem, and the only 2 unlimited resources of this are up and down.

Your “let’s build on more land” idea is exactly the kind of lack of vision our politicians suffer from.

My land tax idea would ensure that the limited resource, which our current system fails to organise well enough, is organised to the benefit of the economy and of the jobs it would create. A tax free amount would also ensure that the poor are not impacted on too much.

Europe as a whole has land which is too expensive and all too many land owners who have proved that they do not go remotely towards an optimal through limitting the supply leading to high prices which impact on the whole economy. The time has come to change this archaic system, and to organise the evident market failure. That is the duty of any government, and should be done as soon as possible.

There is no need for revolution we can just organise it so that those who have a lot of land for their own personal use, pay for the privilege.

The main thing that is "archaic" are the massively restrictive planning laws in the UK. Most people in the UK *aspire* to own their own HOUSE, not a high-density city apartment. That won't change. So, either you give people what they want, or you don't.

Giles..

 

[Gmart]

or the price and availability of flats is so good that the market changes. Having a house SHOULD be MUCH more expensive than having a perfectly reasonable flat, with a shared green area. Creates more community and uses the space more effectively.

 

[Giles]

I'm sure that I read somewhere that a big majority of people in the UK would like, at some point, to have their own house with a garden, however small.

If that's what people want, then that is what should be provided.

Giles..

 

[ViolentPanda]

Just a point: I remember the Indie article going on about "unregistered land" as if this was some scam by which people avoided paying their "dues" or something.

In reality, this registered / unregistered thing means very little. Not that far back, ownership was listed on physical deeds for each piece of farmland, house and garden, etc.

When a central computerised registry was set up, they decided, for common-sense and practical reasons, to simply register all land as it was sold from one person to another.

Now, having got pretty far with this, they are in a position to set about registering that land and property whose ownership is still given in old-style paper deeds.

"Unregistered land" is not "owned by no-one", or "secretly owned" by anyone. Its just not been bought and sold since they set up the Land Registry database.

And regarding ideas for "land reform" - so much depends on what a person wants to DO with what they own. A person occupying 5 acres as a personal garden has a lot, and is probably very rich. A farmer with 5 acres doesn't really have much at all, in terms of what can be made from that amount of land.

Giles..

Kevin Cahill, the author of "Who Owns Britain and Ireland" (an excellent book on the ownership of vast landed estates by the so-called "upper classes", the church and "big business", if you haven't read it) remarked in an interview on Radio 4 last year (on a programme about, you guessed it, "who owns Britain") reckoned that at any one time about 5% of the land in the UK and Ireland is tied up in probate, and the ownership of another 7% is subject to legal dispute.
It doesn't sound like a lot until you sit down and calculate the acreage involved.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You seems a bit confused Giles. You ask “What problem?” as if I haven’t described the problem in detail, and then go on to answer the exact problem i’ve been on about! It is a LAND problem you state but actually it is a SPACE problem, and the only 2 unlimited resources of this are up and down.

Not quite "unlimited", but certainly there's plenty of scope for such development. Physics and the capabilities of modern structural engineering, as well as environmental, geographical and geological factors, will place limits on building up and down unique to each projected development, though.

Your “let’s build on more land” idea is exactly the kind of lack of vision our politicians suffer from.

Why expect any better from politicians? You haven't made substantial donations to their political party, most of the large-scale private housing developmers have.

My land tax idea would ensure that the limited resource, which our current system fails to organise well enough, is organised to the benefit of the economy and of the jobs it would create. A tax free amount would also ensure that the poor are not impacted on too much.

Only if you "ring-fence" the revenue for particular use, otherwise it'll just get pissed away like Thatcher did with the oil revenue.

Europe as a whole has land which is too expensive and all too many land owners who have proved that they do not go remotely towards an optimal through limitting the supply leading to high prices which impact on the whole economy. The time has come to change this archaic system, and to organise the evident market failure. That is the duty of any government, and should be done as soon as possible.

High housing land prices aren't solely based on a deliberately restricted supply on the land side, though. They're also prey to the suitability of land for the particular purposes it's being purchased for, as we've seen with the idiotic phenomenon throughout the UK of developers purchasing marginal land on flood plains, on former landfill sites etc, and developing housing on it, usually (as it turns out later) in somewhat dodgy collusion with local officialdom.

There is no need for revolution we can just organise it so that those who have a lot of land for their own personal use, pay for the privilege.

Ah, but that would be a revolution, given the current state of play, would it not?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm sure that I read somewhere that a big majority of people in the UK would like, at some point, to have their own house with a garden, however small.

If that's what people want, then that is what should be provided.

Giles..

Personally, living in an urban environment, I prefer the incredibly old-fashioned idea of a non-existent or "postage stamp" garden, and access to an allotment if you want to grow flowers and produce. It makes far better use of available land.

 

[Cobbles]

As much as that sucks I don't like the idea of every square inch in Britian being opened up to development and urban sprawl, especially since there are a lot more empty houses than there are homeless people.

Also, there's a lot more blasted heath and stuff where the land slopes at about 30 degrees or more than there is prime farming or development land.

Why not carve it up and let everyone have a plot? - I'd love to see trying to commute from Dartmoor to London or trying lash lash a market garden onto the side of a Munro.

Anyway, who's going to develop or work all this lovely land - that needs capital - as Mr. Mugabwe's rabble found out - even the ministers who nabbed the decent farms found out that they turned to dust if they weren't managed properly.

Everybody else simply starved.

 

[Gmart]

I'm sure that I read somewhere that a big majority of people in the UK would like, at some point, to have their own house with a garden, however small.

If that's what people want, then that is what should be provided.

Giles..

No Giles. People's wants are often more than the world can support, and esp. when considering limited resources. We do NOT have enough land or wealth to enable EVERYONE to have their own piece of land, but we CAN build up and down and create communities AROUND pieces of land which are SHARED.

People might not WANT to share, but that is just tough we can't always have what we want and if a government pretended that everyone could, then that government would be a charlaton.

If Labour decided to promise that everyone could have a Porsche if they voted for Labour, then the Conservatives would be up in arms about it, in the same way as promising lower taxes when this is unaffordable.

I do NOT think that the compromise I suggest is particularly unrealistic, and indeed might create some of the community missing from the UK, tho education reform is the basis of this problem IMO.

VP i accept your points, of course up and down are limitted physically to varying degrees, but after seeing these policies put into good effect in Korea, I have less sympathy for the European obsession for building across and then complaining about the high price of space.

Only if you "ring-fence" the revenue for particular use, otherwise it'll just get pissed away like Thatcher did with the oil revenue.

Certainly a more open system would help in its administration, but saying that it would get pissed away is an assumption. It might not! It might be used effectively for the good of all

Of course keeping land and empty buildings tied up is NOT the ONLY factor in the supply side of space, but it is an important one, as is the necessity to ensure that all land is registered and used for the good of all, rather than for the good of the land owners.

 

[Cobbles]

My land tax idea would ensure that the limited resource, which our current system fails to organise well enough, is organised to the benefit of the economy and of the jobs it would create. A tax free amount would also ensure that the poor are not impacted on too much.

How would it work?

Would you charge the same for an acre in the centre of Westminster as an acre ten miles from the nearest road in Sutherland?

I can see it now - the Land TaxAgency - staffed by thousands, (including a massive HR department making sure that everybody's been on courses like "emotional Intelligehce" that are CRUCIAL to their role of wheeling round the post), with an annual tax revenue of 300 million that only costs 500 million a year to collect as half of its attempted recoveries are tied up in litigation over differential rates without which the system would just be a farce.

Why anyway should someone (individual or entity) have to pay an annual tax on land - it's not like Council Tax where there's a return in the guise of "services" delivered by the Local Authority.

Thereare already enough punitive taxes on "land" (stamp duty Inheritance Tax and CGT spring to mind) that deter development and the production of new housing.

 

[Gmart]

How would it work?

Would you charge the same for an acre in the centre of Westminster as an acre ten miles from the nearest road in Sutherland?

Why anyway should someone (individual or entity) have to pay an annual tax on land - it's not like Council Tax where there's a return in the guise of "services" delivered by the Local Authority.

There are already enough punitive taxes on "land" (stamp duty Inheritance Tax and CGT spring to mind) that deter development and the production of new housing.

There is an obvious need to organise a market which is not flexible enough naturally to optimise, and which also does not give enough incentives to build up and down. Also there is the ongoing fiasco of Council Tax which is regressive and which needs to be replaced. Thus the tax reform I describe. I would suggest that existing taxes could be replaced with the new one to simplify the system. Also keeping land and huge houses and NOT paying tax on it for this privilege is what I am aiming to solve, (see OP)

Of course land in the centre of London cannot have the same rate as land outside Inverness, so commercial areas would need to have a higher tax, mitigated by breaks for building up, while the land outside inverness might have the lowest rate per square metre to encourage its usage, or maybe it could be registered as forest.

I am open to suggestions though. I mean that it would be tempting to have a default situation where the land goes to the National Trust if it is a forest, with a payment to the existing landlords once and for all. But this might be difficult to get through parliament.

Does anyone remember the Fulfords and that documentary about their family land (see here).

I am NOT going to let simple fear of a system going wrong stop me in my pursuit of a better system.

 

[tim]

Britain comprises approximately 60 million acres, but more than 99 per cent of its population of 60 million are confined to a mere five million acres, with 150,000 private estate owners occupying in excess of 40 million acres.
Rural communities have witnessed the manipulations of estate owners who benefited from this land shortage and still act as though we are in the 18th century. This has contributed to the price of the average house now being the most expensive in Europe and beyond the reach of many hopeful first-time buyers.

And we, the populace, pay £15.5bn in community charges each year, but the landed gentry pay £120m, while receiving in excess of £3bn a year in grants.



It is time the British people began to question and the unearned privileges many of our landed gentry have bestowed on themselves, and to implement a land reform and redistribution programme in Britain for the greater benefit of the majority.

A new system is needed to replace Council Tax, and so I would suggest a system which taxes by the square metre, with a personal allowance for each person. Thus less tax would be paid if you built up, moving the supply curve for space to the right and leading to a fall in price and a rise in competitiveness.

Any other ideas?

Are there really 150,000 private estate owners? And if so how is that term defined? I'd be quite happy to the Dukes of Devonshire, Westminster and their ilk deprived of their excessive land ownings and to see their land go directly into the hands of those who farm it, but presumably the figure of 150,000 quoted must actually include a large number of fairly ordinary farmers alongside a smaller number of vastly overendowed aristos and other richies. The point about farming is that you do actually need rather a lot of land to do it, considerably more than is needed by the average townie.

 

[Gmart]

In the name of self-sufficiency we support our farming sector, tho I could argue against it!!

Still some support in the form of tax breaks maybe but it is very difficult to change the usage of land from farm land which is cheap to land for development, which could be looked at.

 

[Cobbles]

Thus the tax reform I describe. I would suggest that existing taxes could be replaced with the new one to simplify the system.

I'm sure that there's loads of OAP's on meagre incomes whose property simply happens to cover more than their "square meter allowance"who would be delighted to be forced into bankruptcy to stay in their home or be forcedt o sell at an unrealistically low price to pay your land tax.