new law that bans citizens of China and some other countries from purchasing property in large swaths of Florida can be enforced while being challenged in court, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

Judge Allen Winsor denied the American Civil Liberties Union’s request to block the state law as it seeks to overturn it. The group is representing Chinese citizens living in Florida.

  • @cdf12345@lemmy.world
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    5711 months ago

    They need to word these laws that owning residential property without living in them incurs a massive tax or is prohibited altogether. This is why housing for so out of control in parts of Canada like Vancouver.

    • @sfgifz@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Sureee but that would also apply to wealthy American “investors” and corps that buy property to rent out.

      • @cdf12345@lemmy.world
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        211 months ago

        I’m all for implementing a bracketed system like income tax for entities that own X properties that dont live in them.

    • @Mojojojo1993@lemmy.world
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      811 months ago

      Still are. Was never because of foreigners.

      Is and always will be because people are greedy. How many properties does Luxon own again ?

  • @Iwasondigg
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    2011 months ago

    A florida law I actually agree with. In my area, 40% of home purchasers are Chinese nationals looking to park their money outside if China. No American can afford to buy a home and they’re using our houses like a piggy bank.

    • @DarkWasp@lemmy.world
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      811 months ago

      Same is happening in major Canadian cities too. Has completely destroyed the housing market. There’s other factors as well but that’s not helping at all.

  • roguetrick
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    11 months ago

    Florida has no place in deciding “national security issues” in who to sell property to near military bases. That is absolutely a federal prerogative. Federalist society Trump judge over-reach here. (Just so my politics don’t get too confused though: I’m a socialist and would actually support taking this property from rent seeking landlords.)

    • Alto
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      711 months ago

      That would be an excellent point if it were federally owned land

      • roguetrick
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        211 months ago

        This isn’t just regulating interstate commerce. It’s regulating international commerce, based on countries that are a “threat” and centered around federal military land.

          • roguetrick
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            11 months ago

            That’s explicitly not what the law is about, nor what they’re arguing to the judge. There’s a reason why selling to Chinese nationals has a larger penalty and it’s not to protect the housing market. The injunction should’ve been granted just because it creates real measurable harm due to racism, independent to the fact that it is a law that is blatantly out of Florida’s scope.

        • sebinspace
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          411 months ago

          I concede. Still, there remains a problem of houses being snatched up by corporations, able to outbid any individual, and leaving nothing to actually buy, only rent from the very corporations buying everything. Yeah, we should apply this law to “foreign entities”, as a blanket rule, but there still remains the American corporations doing the same thing.

      • chaogomu
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        311 months ago

        There was probably an element of anti-asian racism as the impetus of the law, but it also addresses an actual problem, so eh?

        Now, if they could ban owning more than two homes, that would be nice. I’d even limit the number of apartment buildings a corporation could own, Maybe one apartment complex per city. Or maybe per state.

        • @sfgifz@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I’d even limit the number of apartment buildings a corporation could own, Maybe one apartment complex per city. Or maybe per state.

          Easy loophole… Just open a subsidiary that would own the complex.

          • chaogomu
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            111 months ago

            That’s where we get into sunshine laws that mandate that all companies must disclose who owns them, and list that owner as part of the paperwork for all company property, and then use that to deny ownership of multiple homes/apartment complexes.

            We should have such sunshine laws anyway. It would prevent a lot of issues.