For anyone else, who, like me, never came across the word before:
> A mews is a row or courtyard of stables and carriage houses with living quarters above them, built behind large city houses before motor vehicles replaced horses in the early twentieth century. Mews are usually located in desirable residential areas, having been built to cater for the horses, coachmen and stable-servants of prosperous residents.
I'd never heard of that usage before, and I was prepared to be flabbergasted at the idea that London might be home to over 12,000 falcon roosts: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mews_(falconry)
I live in an American city that is also popular as a piggybank for kleptocrats. It also has huge housing costs, and hence a huge homelessness problem.
I'd love to see some kind of "use it or lose it" law on unoccupied residences, where they would be subject to large tax penalties or worse. Unfortunately, the kind of people who would be hurt by this are also the kind of people who can and will hire experts to skirt, game, or flout the law. So there's your problem.
In many of London's more upscale boroughs, such as Westminster, there are council tax penalties which apply to properties that are unoccupied for more than 2 years:
2-5 Years - 100% Premium
5-10 Years - 200% Premium
10 Years + - 300% Premium
Of course, even paying 4X council tax is nothing if you're a billionaire oligarch.
Though council tax rarely aligns with desirability or average property price of a borough. Funny you picked Westminster for the example, the one with the cheapest council tax of all.
Tell me about it. Currently paying way more council tax on a way crappier flat in Tower Hamlets (one of London's poorest boroughs) than we used to pay on a beautiful house in Hammersmith and Fulham (one of London's richest...)
Yes, it's basically a residential property tax as it's based (very loosely) on property value and is payed per-property, not per-resident. But it falls on the resident, not the property owner.
Called council tax because it funds council services like street maintenance and rubbish collection.
I don't think there is a property tax in the UK - not as a yearly recurring payment that (some of?) the US has. There's Stamp Duty though, which is paid when you buy a property
If there are enough of these, if they actually pay the tax and if there is a will to do something within a given council - this in theory could help finance newbuild council houses. So it might not work as a deterrent, but could indirectly help those in need anyway. I don't know whether any of those conditions are true, or if the amount the greater taxes bring in would could even cover the cost of building any.
> Of course, even paying 4X council tax is nothing if you're a billionaire oligarch.
True, I was imagining (though I see I never actually said this) a situation though where money raised through these properties would go to making other housing cheaper. I'm not an expert in these matters, but it seems to me like using it for rent subsidies might be the way to do it.
Even in this case, it would still probably have to be much bigger penalties than in the current case of London that you mention, to actually make a significant difference to the perpetual housing crisis. Luckily, I am perfectly at ease with the notion of much bigger penalties.
Even so, that does seem cheap for a 3-bed flat in Knightsbridge. I'm guessing this is a leasehold property with a relatively short tenure, information that is curiously missing from the sales page.
BTW: I don't think we owned it. We lived in some very nice places, as I was growing up, but my father didn't make that much. I think his company (it used to be "The Company") owned or leased the properties.
Thanks for sharing, I always wanted to see what was inside these beautiful properties! (If you go to the lettings section you can actually see individual properties and their HEFTY price)
I had the joy of living on Adam and Eve Mews in Kensington for a period. It was cobblestone and just steps from Kensington Palace and Hyde Park. Amazing to see these photos and I’m thankful someone is documenting these magical little streets.
> A mews is a row or courtyard of stables and carriage houses with living quarters above them, built behind large city houses before motor vehicles replaced horses in the early twentieth century. Mews are usually located in desirable residential areas, having been built to cater for the horses, coachmen and stable-servants of prosperous residents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mews