Write Your Own Law

[mkz]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10057557/Write-your-own-laws-and-win-prizes.html

Let's work on a housing law. Some starting points here:

- Restrict mortgages to an amount deemed affordable for the mortgagor and low-risk for the lender, even in adverse economic conditions;

- Ban interest-only mortgages;

- Only allow housing equity withdrawal to fund improvements to the property in question;

- Allow a mortgagor to surrender the property to the lender and default on the loan, with no legal recourse for the remaining debt;

- Tax the ownership of multiple homes;

- Cancel the tax breaks for buy-to-let investors;

- Cancel local housing allowance;

- Cancel support for mortgage interest;

- Cancel the right to buy scheme;

- Introduce capital gains tax on the primary residence, in place of stamp duty;

- Ease the restrictions on the land available for residential property;

- Build more houses.

That's 113 words...

[Butthead]

FFS! The Telegraph of all papers should know that it's not about writing laws it is about repealing them. Lots of them. Smaller government, yes...!?

[Harry Monk]

Allow log cabins up to a certain size to be built without planning permission.

[Guest TheBlueCat]

I think I'll go with 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law'. Seems like it would just about as effective as the current setup.

[goldbug9999]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10057557/Write-your-own-laws-and-win-prizes.html

Let's work on a housing law. Some starting points here:

- Restrict mortgages to an amount deemed affordable for the mortgagor and low-risk for the lender, even in adverse economic conditions;

- Ban interest-only mortgages;

- Only allow housing equity withdrawal to fund improvements to the property in question;

- Allow a mortgagor to surrender the property to the lender and default on the loan, with no legal recourse for the remaining debt;

- Tax the ownership of multiple homes;

- Cancel the tax breaks for buy-to-let investors;

- Cancel local housing allowance;

- Cancel support for mortgage interest;

- Cancel the right to buy scheme;

- Introduce capital gains tax on the primary residence, in place of stamp duty;

- Ease the restrictions on the land available for residential property;

- Build more houses.

That's 113 words...

I agree with all the "cancel" bits but a lot of the other things are a bit arbitrary and hard to enforce, it would be better IMO to use market forces to make lenders much more cautious when dishing out money e.g. they can only put a charge on 40% of the value of the property. I would also replace CG and stamp duty with an LVT.

[wonderpup]

Restrict mortgages to an amount deemed affordable for the mortgagor and low-risk for the lender, even in adverse economic conditions;

A better way would be to limit the amount you could borrow against any property to a reasonable multiple of it's rental yield- this way at least house prices would track incomes.

[happy_renting]

In anticipation of the day, coming soon, that people will be judged, sentenced and punished in an entirely automated system, integrating GPS, CCTV, communications interception, facial/voice/word recognition, satellite & aerial photography, international police databases, dromes armed with rockets, pattern recognition, predictive behavioural software, psychological profiling, unlimited government access to people's bank acounts, automated issuance of everything from a parking ticket upwards, etc., etc., I propose the following law:

"This law must be broken".

From what I have seen in countless sci-fi films, a paradox such as this will cause smoke and flames to pour out of all the computers controlling the Orwellian state spying machine, thus setting mankind free.

[MattW]

Abolish btl mortgages.

From now on landlords must own the property outright. No more of that 'refinance property x to buy property y' pyramid shit.