Sir, – That our housing market will inevitably remain distorted for the next decade is lazy thinking by our political parties. Furthermore, their illusory solution of a rent-freeze will drive more private landlords out of the market giving long-term control to hedgefunds (structured overseas and reputedly sheltering would-be taxable rent with interest).
The obvious solution to the crisis is to reduce the cost of residential building land by increasing supply. This could be done by making the 7 per cent vacant site levy self-assessed. The number of sites potentially within the ambit of the current legislation would well exceed the paltry 340 sites to date on the commulative registers for the entire country. This is because, unlike any other levy or tax, the onus is placed on each local authority to identify and prove ownership of relevant sites locally – an adversarial exercise which they have neither the resources nor the political will to do.
Setting the levy as a charge on such residential development land and putting the onus on landowners to register their sites under pain of interest and penalties would make them expensive to hoard and result in an immediate increase in supply, leading to a fall in the exorbitant prices for such land in and around our cities and transport hubs. An effective and fair solution without putting further strain on first time buyers. – Yours, etc,
DES ROONEY
Bray, Co Wicklow.