Interesting Links for 18-09-2017

[andrewducker]

The mystery of the miniature coffins of Arthur's Seat

(tags: edinburgh death history mysteries )

Council plans crackdown on Airbnb in Edinburgh

(tags: edinburgh rental housing scotland )

Cat + Black Metal lyrics = awesome

(tags: music HeavyMetal lyrics cats photos )

Emailing 25k Marilyn Manson fans a video of their house

(tags: video location marketing music )

Women know better than men what other people are thinking and feeling

(tags: women emotion empathy )

To Build a working game of Tetris in Conway's Game of Life, first you must create a transistor

(tags: viaSwampers computers life amazing programming )

Scotland's oldest snow patch expected to melt - for the seventh time in 300 years

(tags: snow history globalwarming )

Comments

Re: AirBnB

[danieldwilliam]

I'm not in principle against people turning their flats in to businesses. They own them and there are willing sellers and willing buyers and I think the state and community that the state represents need to be cautious about intervening in ownership and markets.

I'm definately against rowdy holiday makers disturbing your peace and quiet and making your life unpleasant.

I'm definately in favour of regulating markets in order to manage externalities either by forbidding them or by gathering funds to pay compensation.

Having a licence which the council can revoke or threaten to revoke might improve the behaviour of landlords and therefore reduce the suffering inflicted on you through the externalities of the market. Honestly, I'm not optimisitic about Edinburgh Council's ability to resource licence compliance. HMO licence requirements aren't going to address the noise issue and that's going to the be the starting point for the regulations in terms of physical set up. (Specifically, I don't think any new regulations are going to require additional soundproofing in the between-flat voids.)

90 days still seems daft to me as the Furnished Holiday Letting tax rules kick in a 105 days. If you are going to be letting your flat for about 90 days you will probably want to push on to the 105 actual letting days and the 210 potential letting days or you are a student winter let / AirBnB summer let. I don't think it changes any behaviour.

I'd expect it to cover other holiday lets. How would you tell them apart? Not all towns are Edinburgh and there are many towns where tourist income is useful and dependent on holiday letting businesses.

I still think the proposals are unlikely to change behaviour much. The weak link is the council enforcement arm.

Re: AirBnB

[andrewducker]

"I'm not in principle against people turning their flats in to businesses."

Me either. But that means that they then pay business rates and are covered by business regulations. The problem here is largely that people are turning their homes into businesses, but neither declaring them nor being held responsible for it.

I'm also not convinced that the enforcement will be great - but other places are managing to do it. And doing so may lead to all sorts of positives:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/aug/13/half-of-landlords-in-one-london-borough-fail-to-declare-rental-income

Toronto are doing it - and AirBnB seem to be in favour:
https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2017/06/19/toronto-to-move-forward-with-proposed-rules-on-airbnb-style-rentals.html

Re: AirBnB

[danieldwilliam]

If you are subject to business rates when running a single Furnished Holiday Let property you are likely to qualify for Small Business Rates Relief and therefore pay less.

(Although that position seems to be changing).

I'm sure there is all sorts of tax avoidance going on.