Corbyn wants to take over empty luxury properties to solve housing crisis
Jeremy Corbyn wants to reclaim luxury property from owners that is left "deliberately" empty to help..
Jeremy Corbyn wants to reclaim luxury property from owners that is left "deliberately" empty to help solve the nation's housing crisis.
"We would give local authorities the power to takeover deliberately left vacant properties," the Labour leader said, speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr show on Sunday morning.
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"When you have in the middle a lot of housing stress, you get some luxury, glossy, glistening block built, sold off plan to long distance overseas investors who may buy and sell it before it's even built… well hang on. Let's look at the social priorities here."
It comes as new figures released yesterday show that more than half of nearly 2,000 luxury properties built in London last year remain unsold, the Guardian reports.
Corbyn said it was just one of the "number of ways" the party planned to intervene in the market.
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Building council properties with life time tenancies at secure rent, greater regulation of the private rented sector and a government-backed mortgage scheme for first-time buyers to get on the property ladder were also suggested. Corbyn said the party will also buy up 8,000 houses for the homeless if it were to get into power.
Corbyn first called for the empty homes of the rich in Kensington to be requestioned to to house survivors of the deadly Grenfell tower fire.
