Council tax bills could double for owners of empty homes in Stratford district
By Andy Mitchell,
Local Democracy Reporter
OWNERS of second homes which are sitting empty in the Stratford district will see their council tax bills doubled.
Stratford District Council is to enforce laws which permit councils to double council tax on homes left unoccupied for a year, triple it on homes empty for five years and quadruple it on those empty for 10 years or more.
It only applies to properties that are left empty, not those rented out to tenants or registered for business use, for example holiday lets.
It was revealed this week that not making use of the ability to charge more will cost the council a portion of its grant from the government.
Cllr David Curtis (Lib Dem, Stratford Shottery), the district’s political lead on resources, said: “The government’s position is that it expects all local authorities to maximise income from council tax in whatever shape or form that takes.
“As part of that process, they expect council tax to be increased on second homes. The government’s calculation is that we should, had we introduced the premium, have generated around £140,000.
“Therefore, the government has reduced its grant to this local authority by that amount.”
Updated figures show there are 866 second homes in the district but it was noted during the debate that loopholes had been found when such plans were rolled out in other areas, particularly in Wales.
The idea is to maximise the volume of homes available to deal with housing shortages.
Cllr Curtis added: “We are under huge pressure to build housing and even if only some of this housing comes back to the market, I think that would probably be a good thing.
“Over half of the housing that could be released is in bands A, B or C, lower banding. There is a massive shortage of affordable housing in the district, it may be a marginal help towards relieving that but at least it makes some difference.
“If all 866 came back into our register by next September, my understanding is that we would have no second homes and we would get the full government grant.”
Councils must give a full year of notice before implementing this policy and while the cabinet – the panel of Liberal Democrat councillors in charge of major service areas – decided to trigger that, it can be revoked between now and when the budget for the following financial year is set in February 2026.
Leader of the opposition, Cllr Sarah Whalley-Hoggins (Con, Brailes & Compton), queried the need to take such measures, particularly given the council has a £1.1 million surplus against this year’s budget thanks to higher interest rates providing extra income from investments.
“Servicing second homes – cleaners, et cetera – creates employment,” she said.
“There are other types of accommodation in this district that need to be looked at such as student accommodation lying empty.
“We must look carefully at the effect this has had in Wales.”
Conservative colleague Cllr Andy Crump (Southam East, Central & Stockton) chairs the district’s scrutiny panel which oversees council decisions.
“I’m always wary of unintended consequences of actions,” he said.
“We need to look at this properly, including the valuable officer time that will be used to potentially generate £137,000 of income – could that be spent differently to generate extra income?
“It needs looking at in the round rather than looking at it in isolation.”
Leader Cllr Susan Juned (Lib Dem, Alcester East) committed to drilling into the data before finalising the decision.
“We need a bit more of the breakdown and information available,” she said. “We know the position in Wales where people were able to find loopholes so we will need a report going forward.”