Beach hut owners appear to have been given a reprieve from a big increase in the fee that is paid when a hut changes hands.
Brighton and Hove City Council has dropped its latest attempt to levy a percentage-based fee on beach hut licence transfers.
The council currently charges £82 to cover the administrative costs of handling the transfer.
But today (Thursday 12 January) councillors had been due to vote on a proposed 10 per cent transfer tax.
With some beach huts being put up for sale for more than £30,000, this could have brought in thousands of pounds at a time.
A similar proposal was floated four years ago but, as with the latest attempt, appears to have been dropped on legal grounds.
Yesterday, writing for Brighton and Hove News, one beach hut owner, Gerard Phillips, suggested that the transfer tax would mean that beach huts became the preserve of the wealthy.
He wrote: “One of the strengths of the beach hut community is we come from all walks of life.
“Yes, some people with beach huts have paid high prices recently for their hut and are perhaps better off than others. But they are few. Do you want only the rich to be able to afford these huts?”
Earlier this week, Conservative councillor Samer Bagaeen asked the council about the legality of the latest proposals.
Today, the council’s senior commercial lawyer Alice Rowland wrote to members of the council’s Tourism, Equalities, Communities and Culture Committee who were due to decide the matter this afternoon.
She said: “In relation to the ‘fees and charges’ report on today’s agenda, there is an officer amendment in relation to the beach huts transfer fee.
“We have had some external legal advice in relation to beach huts which means that we will not be able to bring forward the proposals at this point.
“We need to go back to counsel and clarify the advice before proceeding so we are putting forward an officer amendment to the fees and charges report.
“The officer amendment will read ‘that committee agrees the proposed fees and charges for 2023-24 as set out within the report with the exception of the proposal relating to transfer fees for beach huts’.”
Beach huts are the preserve of the rich, start taxing them.
So that they will sell up and even richer people would buy them?
They backed down because the rich green trustfarians of Florence Rd told Phelim no.🤣🤣
The proposal to increase rents by such an increase is immoral & illegal. Any forced change of contract on beach hut owners would be coercion and bullying of which the worst kind of landlord should be ashamed. If it were in the Private sector it would be bad enough & there would be outrage. Our Council to try & increase fees by some 3000% is utterly scandalous. Hopefully common sense will prevail ..
Unfortunately common sense is in very short supply when it comes to the Council. This “punch in the nose” for their avarice and incompetence is well deserved.