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A Tory has slammed the proposed clampdown on short lets proposed by Housing Secretary Michael Gove - and he calls them “wretched restrictions”.
Writing on the Conservative Home website, Charles Amos - who studied Political Theory at the University of Oxford and writes a blog called The Musing Individualist - makes a case for a libertarian assessment of Gove’s proposals.
Amos says the chief justification for the changes is to make more homes affordable for local people. But he says: “Local people have no inherent right to live where they were brought up, let alone at an affordable price.”
And he goes on: “The moral idea local people have a right ‘to live in the place they call home’ must be rejected and with it, the justification for requiring planning permission for short-term lets.”
More broadly, he also argues: “When both locals and tourists wish to live in an area, house prices will rise, increasing the profits of building houses there, and eventually increasing their supply to meet both wants.
By partially stopping the increased demand via increased planning permission, by stopping some short-term lets, these profits do not arise, and, thus, neither does the expansion in the housing supply.”
Amos also - possibly most controversially - suggests a proposed ban on Section 21 evictions effectively legalises theft of a property by a tenant.
Arguing this he says: “Tenants occupying a landlord’s house when he wishes to retake possession of it when a fixed term lease comes to an end are committing theft just as much, and, even if the state legalises this, it remains wrong.”
He concludes: “A liberal society that respects private property must oppose these wretched restrictions with the utmost force. Only then will it truly respect the sanctity of each owner himself.”
You can read the full piece here: https://conservativehome.com/2024/03/11/charles-amos-goves-restrictions-on-landlords-legalise-theft-opposing-them-is-a-moral-necessity/
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