Comment by asoneth | Hacker News Reader

Comment by asoneth | Hacker News Reader

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> tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property?

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.)

>> 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.

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.

> That is not what GP advocated for

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.

> Increased taxation is not forfeiture, and being forced to sell because taxes are prohibitive is different from the government taking your building.

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).

Well if we zoom out to the moon so that everything looks the same “in the area we are talking about” then I guess there are no distinctions between anything, are there? A person that gets robbed is the same as a person that forgets their wallet on a train, they both just failed to meet their obligations (in one case an obligation to not let someone have their wallet and in the other their obligation to remember where they put their wallet).

Maybe government won't be overthrown, but you can easily loose the election.

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.

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