What's madness is the state allowing property owners to leave vacant, dilapidated buildings to blight the neighborhood. Owners should be required to maintain their structures and keep them occupied, or forfeit the property.
There are quite some neglected properties around here and the owners are away, do not care anymore and the authorities do not care as long as the low property taxes are paid. There was a case close by, where a buisness wanted to get rid of the old rotting building next to them, but could not. It went on for years. Only after the building burned down (no idea if someone helped with that), the space could be finally cleared.
So yeah, exproptiation should only ever be the last resort, but in some cases it really makes sense.
"pay 1% of the buildings value as property tax each year"
A old rotten building might be worth just 10000€. And 100 € a year ain't that much. One would have to tax the property - and who will set up the rates in a fair way in a process that is not vulnerable to corruption?
I think Japan is one of the outliers where pretty much all property value is locked with the land itself, as buildings depreciate not appreciate.
That's good, because if they can't pay, their house is up for remodelling too. /sarcasm
Also, you need to figure out how you define vacant, and how to track it.
If I relocated for work, and use the house 3 months a year and every other month for a weekend, is it vacant? How do you tell?
The definition of vacant is something that would have to be figured out, but it's not impossible. For example, you could do a generous 6-12 months of the year occupation without taxation, and then a sliding scale from there. (So you pay 0% of the new tax at 12 months yearly occupation, 0% at 6 months, 50% at 3 months, and 100% at 0 months.)
Imagine you worked all your life and now you just want to enjoy your peace in your home for your last years. You really would not want to move and I am very against driving old people out of their homes, even though I am one of those young people with a small apartment also seeing empty and unused space everywhere.
Not everyone can do that easily. I would not know how that works and where are the downsides. I can learn it, sure, but for an 80 year old this would be real stress, having to figure unknown contracts out - and not getting cheated. Old people are a prime target for frauds for a reason.
This is why complaining about rising property taxes is almost never about the elderly people who actually live in the house. It's about their children that want to inherit the house without paying off their parents' property taxes.
People in different countries experience different realities.
> The reality is that the same thing, in effect, happens if you stop paying property taxes. The tax builds up, etc.
and in many places worse things will happen to you if you stop paying property taxes.
That was my point, not binding the value just to the building itself.
You could maybe try to figure out based on water usage but then someone could just leave water tap slightly leaking since water cost is not that expensive
Probsbly squatters are those cheap solution that can enforce it in the most efficient way
In general, everything you could propose that puts pressure on landlords leads to transfer of ownership from your (maybe friendly) landlord with 2-3 units, to larger, more professional companies who can handle the paperwork and regulations, with a tendency to tear down and rebuild something that is more expensive to rent or buy.
I live in Turkey. We had 80% p.a. inflation, where the government decided to lower the interest rates even further. Our president said Interest rates are the cause of inflation and if we lowered interest rates inflation would go down. State banks gave out house loans with 12% p.a. interest where the inflation rate was above 80% p.a.
A lot of Turkish people got their free money from the bank and invested in real estate. In Turkey, everyone evades tax and property taxes are not really collected. This in turn fueled inflation even more, sky-rocketed inequality and caused the worst housing crisis.
That is why I am convinced that property taxes are a must.
I think allowing short term rentals, and giving owners strong eviction rights for damage, illegal activity or non-payment (which we have) need to be paired with property taxes to prevent all landlords becoming large inhuman entities.
It should also be noted that if you tax everything at the value it could make, you distort the usage of valuable locations to exclude housing.
-- snip --
okay, I looked it up. you have, but it's not fully public like ours. Yeez that's messed up!
Yes it is. You can request information, but I was told "wanting to buy" is explicitely excluded as a valid reason. (The usual solution is knowing someone inside the office, or paying someone who knows)
Edit: sorry, havent been living in Germany for long. Thought it was the same as the Dutch kadaster. Turns out, it's not and my dealings with it have been unusually easy until now.
The reason why expropriation isn't used a lot is because it costs a lot of resources.
Those are cases where I think expropriation would be warranted.
And if it would be easier to buy obviously unused land, less properties would end up in that rotten final state, so less need to even discuss forcing something.
Who defines what “maintained” means? Beyond safety concerns about the structure (and even then, they shouldn’t be able to tell me anything as long as I post a danger unsafe structure keep out sign and lock the doors), why would the government have any right to tell me what to do with my building?
I suspect it would make more sense to do so via tax policy, i.e. high property taxes (or LVT) with a deduction for each occupant.
> why would the government have any right to tell me what to do with my building?
For one thing, governments have a vested interest in not being overthrown. If a sufficiently large percentage of the population believes that their living standards are declining (including not having a place to live) then an increasing number of people will arrive at the conclusion that revolution or terrorism has a positive risk/reward ratio.
I've worked in a country where the previous government had allowed this to occur; apparently it happened gradually and then suddenly. Beyond a certain point you can only consider something "my building" if you have the means to defend it against anyone who might wish to make it their building. In that case, the possession of a piece of paper which you once used to outsource the enforcement of your property rights to the previous government isn't very useful.
(Edit: To be clear, I think allowing squatting is a poor solution to the problem of reducing homelessness and better tax and housing policies are more sustainable and equitable, I'm just explaining why the government has a substantial interest in what private landowners do with their properties.)
Vacant land use taxes do make sense to me. That is not what GP advocated for: “Owners should be required to maintain their structures and keep them occupied, or forfeit the property.” Increased taxation is not forfeiture, and being forced to sell because taxes are prohibitive is different from the government taking your building.
>> governments have a vested interest in not being overthrown
This is a tortuous chain of logic to go from unoccupied buildings to overthrown government concerns.
Right, that's why before I responded to your question ("why would the government have any right to tell me what to do with my building?") I tried to make it clear that I think there are better approaches than what the GP was advocating for i.e. directly seizing vacant properties.
> This is a tortuous chain of logic to get from building with squatters to government overthrown.
Can you be more specific about what part you disagree with?
To be clear, I'm not arguing that squatting results in overthrown governments, but that the acceptance of widespread squatting is sometimes a (shortsighted) policy response to a housing crisis. Squatting is a symptom but what can actually topple governments is sufficiently high levels of homelessness. Any government that allows a sufficiently large percentage of residents (especially young people) to become homeless will eventually be replaced by anarchy or a new government.
To reiterate, I'm just trying to answer your question of what right the government has to tell you what to do with your property -- I'm not specifically defending the GP's suggestion.
That's a distinction without a difference, at least not a difference in the area we're talking about. Both mechanisms cause title to be lost if certain obligations are not met (in one case, an obligation to occupy, in the other, an obligation to pay taxes).
European cities are dense, and there is limit to their growth, as they are often surrounded by tight circles of villages. Sure, you can build a few buildings there, but those villages are often fighting against high buildings, and residents often fight against urbanisation of the area. So you can't build suburbs like in USA and this makes the already problematic situation (high prices, big funds buying whole apartment complexes to rent them, many people buying apartments as assets and being afraid of renting due to protections towards tenants) even worse. So every building is worth it's weight in gold. And whole abandoned buying is going to be a daily reminder for many people that cannot afford to buy 1 room apartment about how unfair current situation is.
I don't want to argue about what to do with situation, just adding a perspective.
Having vacant apartments and houses for long time in places where there is an housing shortage create much bigger negative consequences than few metal concerts...
You do have the right to paint your frontage the way you want with respect to the GOVERNMENT.
But more importantly, the GP wanted the government to TAKE VIA FORFEITURE any building that is merely vacant. Your examples are limits on use, not relinquishment of property. They are not the same.
The notion that property rights is unlimited is an extremist view that doesn't match the legal situation in any jurisdiction on the planet with a government.
> The government should tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property? This is an extremist view.
It is not an extremist view. It's a public policy failure for land to sit vacant like that. Squatters rights can be a solution to that (e.g. in the US, squatters can actually get title to the land in cases of long-term abandonment).
> Who defines what “maintained” means? Beyond safety concerns about the structure (and even then, they shouldn’t be able to tell me anything as long as I post a danger unsafe structure keep out sign and lock the doors), why would the government have any right to tell me what to do with my building?
This is actually the extremist view, private property rights do not trump all other considerations.
For a very clear example: if you're surrounded by starving people, and you own a warehouse full of food that you plan to let rot because you can't be bothered, the government absolutely does have the right to tell you what to do with that food.
Then the government should buy the land.
>> For a very clear example: if you're surrounded by starving people, and you own a warehouse full of food that you plan to let rot because you can't be bothered, the government absolutely does have the right to tell you what to do with that food.
Let’s not use other examples and argumentation by analogy when we already have a very clear fact pattern. You own a building and the building is not currently occupied. The building is unsightly but structurally sound. Does/should the government have the right to make you surrender that building without compensation (because that’s what forfeit means) simply due to it being unoccupied? Why?
> Then the government should buy the land.
No, I don't think so.
> You own a building and the building is not currently occupied. The building is unsightly but structurally sound. Does/should the government have the right to make you surrender that building without compensation (because that’s what forfeit means) simply due to it being unoccupied? Why?
Yes. The legal principle has a long, long history across many different legal systems.
And I think you're thinking about it wrong: the government didn't "make you surrender that building," you chose to surrender it by leaving it unoccupied and unused to the point someone else could occupy and use it without a timely challenge.
Cite them.
Usucapio
I am not a commonwealth lawyer, but my understanding is that they have a similar modern rule in the UK and other commonwealth countries. I am not a continental lawyer, but my understanding is that civil law is similar with respect to government takings.
I will give you credit here because you may have interpreted the GP’s statement of “or forfeit the property” to mean generally lose possession of the property (including to a third party) rather than in the context of the prior sentence that references “the state allowing.” So, some backwards ancient legal principles that have been rejected or severely limited in modern times MIGHT support the contention that a third party can take someone’s land due to it being unoccupied and no modern legal principles support the contention that the government can make someone forfeit their land to the state merely for it being unoccupied.
The answer to my question (Does/should the government have the right to make you surrender that building without compensation (because that’s what forfeit means) simply due to it being unoccupied? Why?) is then “Maybe to someone that is occupying the unoccupied building (however that works) but not to the government.” Got it.
And it’s clear we both know that I have been talking about GOVERNMENT takings (“The government should tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property?”).
Because homelessness caused by artificial scarcity is violation of a basic human right, and a public order nightmare. Putting private property above other human rights is the root cause of so much problems in today's societies.
Question. If I owned a house, and went on a long vacation outside the country (e.g. because maybe I like travelling or something), how long would I be able to stay on vacation before the government yoinked my house due to it being empty?
Because you know the problem doesn't come from people going for long vacations, but from landlords hoarding houses and holding in order to never let the price go down.
«Owning a house» can mean two very different things. It's either:
- I'm living in a place and I don't depend on anyone for hosting me.
- I hold some piece of paper that says that this particular place in the country belongs to me and if the people living there don't pay me I can call the police to get them evicted.
The first one is basic human right and should be protected as such, the second one is just something enforced by the power of the state in favor of the upper class against the working class.
[1] which, in many countries you need to declare to the government already, so that they know where to get you should they send the police to arrest you.
If the answer is "yes", then based on your post, the answer to my question of how long can I take a vacation for, is "decades".
But if that is indeed considered empty, then what if in addition to that, every month I email someone my travel expenses and tell them to print them and to put them in some drawer in that property (maybe locked with a key or something), and also mail some cheap souvenirs and tell them to put them as decoration somewhere, is that still considered empty? (Since it has my stuff, and is continuously storing more stuff I'm purchasing.)
If that is allowed, then the next question is what if my vacation is in the same country.
So yeah, what kind of activity, and with what frequency, does that property have to have in order for it to not be considered empty, without leaving some kind of loophole?
For instance, you are paying income taxes in your “country of residence” and not in your country of vacations (unless you are an American citizen living abroad, in which case you pay it to both your country of residence and to the US), and there is a threshold that makes one country qualify as “country of residence” versus your countries of vacations.
But like I said, I'm dumb when it comes to this topic.
But it is the crux of the problem.
When establishing things like "country of residence" (or, here in the US, to which state(s) you owe taxes), the second order effects aren't the same. It's the difference between "you owe a few extra percent of your income for one year" versus "you lose your home permanently".
As public policy, it is important not to expropriate someone's home simply because they had to be away for extenuating life circumstances like caring for an ailing relative for a few months. Because otherwise, you will disincentivize that behavior (and create a greater burden for the state).
It's easy for you to come back with "Oh, well the competent bureaucrats in my government will simply write an exception for those who leave for a few months of eldercare because that is clearly a legitimate reason to leave your house vacant for a few months." But that is just a bandaid on an artery which creates an explosion of exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions.
What happens if I need to care for my grandmother, and then something else comes up? Do I get to have two exemptions to expropriation? Can they be consecutive? What sort of documentation do I need? What if the exemption allows n days, but I need n+3? What if I had planned an m-1 days vacation (for the m vacation days exception) right before I need n days to care for my grandmother?
Very quickly you will have 10,000 pages of rules that nobody understands. And you will get perverse outcomes when someone hits an edge case that wasn't quite accounted for.
Or maybe you will say "put the case in front of a judge and let them exercise discretion". But now we have the problem that it is no longer really rule of law, and people with connections will always get exceptions while people without don't. So that increases the class divide because people with connections are usually rich, and middle-class people usually don't have connections.
And then, all this argument is basically a straw man, because there no need for the state to guess anything or to set threshold, at all: all you need to do is mandate people to declare their primary residence, and in fact it is the case in many fiscal system already! If it is your primary residence, then fine, you can leave it empty for as long you want, as long as you are not lying on the fact that this is in fact your primary residence (and if you're lying, then the state must gather the evidence and win against you in court, which is what the rule of law is).
Tada! Imaginary problems solved.
No, but they have to keep it in good condition, which includes keeping it secure.