On that measure, they calculated something like 16% of investment properties were vacant.

https://www.afr.com/real-estate/residential/vic/investors-ke...

Of course some people would still infringe law (#Balkany) but most would not.

I the special case of France: such a law would be really easy to apply, at or least it would without Macron's changes: as everybody living somewhere was paying the «taxe d'habitation», every house without anyone paying for inhabiting it is an empty house. And in practice, with the suppression of the «taxe d'habitation», cities could just raise the level for the «taxe foncière» and it would have the same effect as a taxe on empty houses, without any special work to do.

I bet Melbourne already has entrepreneurs selling the installation of this "water surveillance solution" at value pricing: a fraction of the saved occupancy tax!

"""Land tax applies to residential properties that are not used as principal places of residence, including all residential properties owned by a trust or corporation. Land tax does not apply to commercial properties."""

Prop 13 essentially broke the concept of property tax in California.

Prop 13 incentivizes not moving, and it only gets better the longer you dont move

Are you referring to the almost comically small property tax reduction for primary residences? Or to the mortgage interest deduction?

Just ask the utility companies how much electricity and water are being used. No spying required.

I'm sure there would be people that would try to work around the system, same as with every other law.

FYI - your pitch is equivalent to spying on call metadata vs content, which has been proven to be dangerous enough

How will this be difficult to fake? Just run timers on some appliances, or buy up cheap cryptomining gear that mines at negative ROI and run it.

Very easy, but it'd be tax evasion which is a serious crime.

Most taxes are pretty trivial to evade if you put some thought in to it. Very few people bother because the reward doesn't outweigh the risk. Saving a few tens of thousands of dollars a year isn't worthwhile if the penalty for being found out is losing everything you saved and years in prison. It's actually one of the few places in criminal law where the penalty actually works as a deterrent.

Next up: captchas to turn on the stove. "We need to make sure you're a human that wants to prepare food and not just a weird property owner that wants to pretend that somebody lives here".

See bidgely.com for one example.

Well, if they catch you, depends on the fine, you'll pay them all at once. They don't have to catch all, just make example of a few.

Or you can check if it was anyone's primary (and thus, tax) residence at any point in the year prior. Or check the utility consumption. Etc.