An 87-year-old woman from Lemiers in Limburg who owned substantial real estate in nearby Vaals has left most of it to her tenants in her will. According to the Telegraaf, Anneliese Houppermans, who earned her money from a successful fruit and vegetable business, owned several houses in the community...
An 87-year-old woman from Lemiers in Limburg who owned substantial real estate in nearby Vaals has left most of it to her tenants in her will.
According to the Telegraaf, Anneliese Houppermans, who earned her money from a successful fruit and vegetable business, owned several houses in the community. She never married or had children, and her ties to her family had faded over the years.
At first (because I'm a rapidly evolving into my final curmudgeon form) this put me in mind of those families that ended up losing their house after appearing on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition because they could no longer afford the taxes and upkeep on their houses. But this line of the article helped put me at ease:
“I only have to pay €75,000 in inheritance tax which I have turned into a mortgage. I have effectively been given €200,000, it’s great,” he said.
Inheritance tax, in my opinion, is a very good thing. It prevents people from passing down wealth and keeps the playing field more even. Obviously nepotism and connections can't be taxed, but it's a step in the right direction. It's not like they "deserved" that money or anything. I'm happy for them, but taxing it seems fine to help people with less.
Welcome to Holland, we've arranged good dikes, good infrastructure, social benefits and affordable healthcare for all.
How do we pay for all of it?
Yeah... You now know how. We pay a lot of tax. And I mean a lot.
17+ % VAT on everything. Cars have an extra tax called bpm of around 20%. So half the price of a car is tax. 1 litre (not a gallon!) of ron95? Over 2 euros. Etc. (because that's not all)
It's fun.
And thats why we are tall. Because if we weren't we would drown in our taxes ;)
This to a certain extent extent is what we should be doing with housing. We've got a huge problem with elderly Care and who's going to take care of them and where the money is coming from. And we've got a huge problem with rent going out of control going into people's pockets that aren't going to use the money for anything. Why aren't rents just going to pay towards people's elderly Care I don't understand.
We should use housing to lift up those who came before us and can't carry as much as their own anymore as well as enriching those who come into replace them.
We pay for your retirement. We get the house. Then those after us pay for our retirement. The cycle continues.
Every generation should finance their own retirements. Fluctuating population will lead to few having to finance many.
This is the state of affairs in Germany, where old people live in both huge places and are paid pensions which will be unreachable for the younger generation.
I live in a village with many single family houses from the 70s and 80s. The people living here are old and are either not capable or willing to invest in their homes
Understandable in my opinion. Why invest if you know you'll die in 10 years...
What I wished would happen that older people would downsize. It is common for older people to live in their 7 room house they build for their entire family of 5. Children all grown up and in different cities, house not maintained and only partially heated.
Feels like pragmatism dies before the rest. Just move to a smaller apartment and give the house meant for families back to families ...
Everyone should have a guaranteed basic standard of living with dignity, then you wouldn't need to worry so much about retirement.
Individualism is the wrong direction to go.
Oh but we can't afford that! No, not if we let a small handful of our population buy yachts for their yachts and fly around the globe in their private jets, and no not if we let individual companies hoard more money than entire nations.
Thank you for your insight. I didnt think hard enough. With declining birth rates this equation wouldn't work without a secondary funding source to make sure it floated through the rough times.
Generally decent? I understand that someone can say "ooh she could've just gave it to her family to keep generational wealth" but she held housing for ransom for decades until her literal dying breath. I wonder what kind of life was afforded to her through her "substantial real estate." This is orphan crushing machine at its best
I mean she still stole people's income for like. However many years. This deed of hers was good, but I'm not sure it makes up for (potentially) a lifetime of taking working class wages.
Well according to most users here on lemmy she should have been taken out into the street, lined up against a wall with her family, and summarily shot in the back of the head before she even got a chance, because this would never happen and all landlords are literally Adolf Hitler in an Elon Musk mask.
This has been a presentation of The Tankies Suck Minute™, now back to our regularly scheduled programming:
unironically supports a landlord hoarding homes in order to rent seek just because the individual was a good person, completely ignoring the billions of workers this system exploits and kills every day
comes up with some ridiculous straw man tirade that would never exist as an argument in reality in order to blame this on “tankies”
still genuinely believes they’re a good person in spite of all this
Ah yes, all the hallmarks of a true liberal.
You do realize that it’s completely embarrassing when you liberals do this?
The thing about leftist critique of capital is that it’s all valid and based on real fucking shit that happens in real life and is verifiably true today.
When you liberals show up trying to use your cute little sneers under a facade of facts and logic, it completely self-reports how you don’t really give a shit about anything. You don’t believe in anything except yourself.
And the fact that, over and over, you remain completely oblivious to that glaring disconnect between your smug liberal superiority complex and the completely ridiculous easily debunked statements you make, honestly says more about you than what you commented.
Found the Tankie! You can try and deride me for not wanting to kill old women all you wish, but since you do want to kill old women your opinions are invalid. Go choke on rasputin's poorly preserved penis.