The cost of living... what can we do?

Some seem obvious, others not so, until you look further.
How many properties are owned by foreign nationals but reside overseas, they reckon it's between 250-300k properties.

Prior to 2005 the UK was not classed as a tourist destination for the Chinese, since then, how many Chinese have visited and invested in the UK property market.

So there is many factors to take into consideration but who and where are real estates promoting property to.

In Thailand, foreign nationals can not own land, so you can buy a villa or a condo but not the land it sits on, the land is leased. Only last year the Thai government announced they are considering doing a U-turn. This would allow foreign nationals to purchase a property or land right out. However, there are restrictions, you must invest the equivalent of £1 million in Thailand over 3 years and the amount of land or property size you could own for that investment is, 1 Rai, which is 395m2 and it would be restricted to only certain areas within the Kingdom.

At the moment the draft has not been passed with many Thai's not supporting the policy, which I fully understand. I don't think there would be that many foreigners interested anyways but I could be wrong.

 

Yet most of the foreigners who purchase UK property only come from about a dozen countries, Singaporeans being right up there, maybe we should impose the same restrictions as the ones that apply to foreigners wanting to own a property in Singapore.

Its is very difficult to impossible for foreign nationals to buy property and land in many Asian countries on a freehold. Yet figures show oversea nationals from Singapore, China and Hong Kong will probably own a high percentage of properties that are sold to oversea nationals but do not reside in the UK.

 

I think that foreign bnationals should pay the same municipal/property/council taxes as the rest of us however there should be a 75% investment/capital gains tax when they go to sell. Renting out the property should have a maximum plus a small percentage based on the actual runnung (mortgage, maintenence, tax). Take away the glamour of owning multiple properties just for profit, from foreign nationals.

Or a variation of that. Increasing the yearly taxes would just cause the owner to hike the rent to cover it. Drive up the rental costs. Some of our cities have an empty home tax. If a property is just held and is unoccupied, to wait for it to appreciate in value, they pay a higher tax rate.

 

I have recently taken out a 12 month fixed price deal, it's actually very close to the new cap prices.

 

Standing charges are going to be looked into apparently in the next few months.

 

What are standing charges? I'm sure we have something like it but under a different moniker?

 

They are a standing daily charge for supply to a property, one for gas and one for electricity, you pay these charges regardless of how much energy you use.

 

Okay, over here they call them "delivery charge" as though they pulled up in a tanker to deliver it. Robbery!

 

Does the UK Gov then add three separate taxes and charge VAT on the lot? Our electricity consumption isn't actually too bad but by the time the Standing charge and taxes are added, the bill has doubled. The icing on the cake is that we used less electricity in the last 2-month period than the previous one, but the bill is well over €100 more thanks to a unit price hike.
I would sooo love to go off-grid!