The beach town of Southwold lies on the Suffolk Heritage Coast, bounded by the North Sea, the River Blyth, Buss Creek and Southwold Harbour, which make it almost an island. The town is accessed via a single road through the neighbouring town of Reydon, and has an attractive seafront with a working lighthouse, pretty beach huts, traditional pier, boating lake and golf course.
All this makes Southwold popular with affluent Londoners and celebrity spotting is a regular feature; Leigh Lawson and his wife Twiggy (whose modelling career was relaunched there), Dame Judi Dench, David Tennant, Stephen Fry, Chris Evans and Michael Palin have all been spotted here. It has also regularly featured in film and TV, including episodes of Dr Who, Little Britain, Grange Hill and Upstairs, Downstairs.
However, like other holiday and beach towns around England and Wales, a significant number of properties bought as second homes in Southwold are empty. Indeed, more than half of properties in Southwold are registered as ‘holiday homes’, and campaigners have now accused owners of tax avoidance.
In order to avoid the payment of Council Tax, a property must be available for letting for a minimum of 140 days a year. However, there is no obligation on the owners to accept any customers, as long as the property is advertised as available to let. A rateable value below £12,000 makes them eligible to qualify for 100% small business rate relief.
One of Southwold’s campaigners, Councillor David Beavan, found in a survey that 60% of second homes in the town were empty for long periods each year. The group went on to expand the survey into other ‘holiday hotspots’, which included Cornwall, Northumberland, the Lake District, Norfolk and Devon.
Mr Beavan said: “In Southwold this loophole costs the local council about £500,000 every year in lost revenue, because 257 of these homes claim to be a business and pay nothing. It is grossly unfair that people with two homes should be subsided by people with no (or only one) home.”
House prices in Southwold increased by over 25% in 2017, making the average price of property in the town nearly £600,000 last year. The largest beachfront properties sell for millions of pounds but the current asking price for one of the beach huts is £150,000. If you’re prepared to live at the edge of town, you can snap up an ‘exciting renovation opportunity’ (the agent’s words) in the form of six-bedroomed, semi-detached Sole Bay House. Listed as a ‘family home or coastal retreat’, the price tag for the property is a mere £2,250,000.
Property Surveying’s Independent Chartered Surveyors can provide you with a building survey or home buyers survey in Southwold, Suffolk or anywhere else in England and Wales.
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