I own and run Trewena Cottages with my wife, Hellen, in Cornwall. This little business has always been my dream. I run it full time, while Hellen works full time elsewhere to keep our household stable.
I hold a PhD in sustainable tourism, and it was that background that shaped our decision to create Trewena the way we have. To fulfil a longterm dream we poured our life savings into somewhere we could establish and build a holiday let business that could be run and operated on site. When we moved in there were two cottages, and since then we have added another and grown it into a business from the ground up. From the start, the aim was clear: to create a model of sustainable tourism that supports the local area. In other words, this is not just a livelihood, it is a model we believe can be part of the solution to the housing crisis.
So far this year (up to the start of September 2025), we have had 104 guest check-ins. That is more than a hundred couples, families and friends coming to experience Cornwall. Nearly every one of them asks us where is good to eat, and we send them down the road to our local pub. Almost without exception, they eat there during their stay, bringing in something approaching £10,000 of annual trade to our local pub alone. They also pop across the lane to the Donkey Sanctuary, visit local farm shops, grab taxis, or try the water sports centre.
We also provide a base for repeat guests visiting children at university in Falmouth, or family living nearby. Over the years many of those guests have become friends. For newcomers we are a reassuring welcome to the area: a human presence, not a faceless lockbox. We help people feel at home, and in doing so we are building community as well as providing holidays.
That is why the removal of the Furnished Holiday Let (FHL) regime has been such a blow. The government framed it as a way to discourage passive landlords and free up housing stock. I understand the logic: there is a housing crisis, and speculative second homes are seen as part of the problem. But here is the thing: owner-operators like us are not passive landlords. We are working full time in hospitality, running small businesses that communities depend on.
Let me be clear about what “running a holiday let” means for us:
- I do every single changeover including all the cleaning, all the laundry, all the ironing.
- I built and manage our website and social media channels and fill them with local guides that promote other businesses.
- I answer guest emails and calls, often late at night or on weekends, because that is when people book.
- I maintain our three acres of land for guests: designing areas and guest experiences, mowing, trimming, planting, keeping it pristine.
- I do the decorating and repairs, keep up with changing regulations (recently ripping out and rebuilding parts of our cottages to meet new fire safety rules), and manage the tech that keeps the Wi-Fi running smoothly.
- I cover the business waste contracts, ICO fees, networking systems, and all the admin.
- I am front of house and on hand 24/7 for our guests. Whether it is answering questions, suggesting a day out, having a friendly chat, or dropping everything to repair a broken shower, fix the Wi-Fi, or make safe a window that a toddler smashed (yes, I have done it all).
This is not moaning. I love it. But it is not passive income. It is a job. It is hospitality. And like many in hospitality, it means working unsociable hours. We do not get to go on holiday in summer, because that is when our guests need us.
I also want to be clear that I am not saying our model is the only right way to run a holiday let, or indeed that passive and remote letting is the evil it’s made out to be (indeed PASC argue that only 0.4% of UK housing stock are holiday lets that could be used as permanent homes). There is a lot of nuance and plenty of downstream effects that I am not delving into, or may not even be aware of, because they do not directly affect me. Even at a high level it would be remiss not to mention businesses that use linen services, cleaning firms and maintenance companies; whole supply chains of tradespeople and servicing firms whose livelihoods depend on holiday letting in its many forms. And then there’s an examination of the housing stock itself, some of the tiny cottages in places like St Ives are so cramped, cold or inaccessible that they would never make practical long-term homes. At the other end of the market, large multi-million-pound holiday homes were never part of local housing stock either. But here’s the point: our model—owner-operated, on site, purpose-built—doesn’t harm housing supply.
That is not the debate I am trying to have here. My point is simply that our model, living on site and running the business full time, is not doing harm, yet we are being caught by the same broad-brush policies that are aimed at passive landlords.
Here is what we have lost with the end of the FHL regime:
- We can no longer count our earnings as “relevant” for pension contributions. That means even though I work full time running Trewena, I cannot put aside tax-efficient savings for my future. The absurd part is that if I hired cleaners for example to do the same job, they would be able to pay into a pension. I want to save too, but as the business owner my work is suddenly treated as if it does not count.
- We have lost capital allowances, which means reinvestment in the business is harder.
- We are now treated differently on capital gains tax compared with other comparable hospitality businesses like B&Bs, hotels and holiday parks. Any gains in our business do not come passively from owning property; they come through the hard work of building a brand and a reputation that guests trust and return to.
If I ran a B&B, boutique hotel or holiday park, I would still be treated as a trading business. As a three-cottage owner-operator, I am now lumped in with passive landlords even though our day-to-day could not look more different.
For us, the impact is stark. We have had to put expansion plans on hold. Expanding has been part of the long-term vision for Trewena, but with these changes it feels financially reckless. Add the ongoing uncertainty around businesses classified as “property income” in the upcoming budget, and the future feels even more fragile.
And now there is talk of bringing in EPC requirements for holiday lets. Again, we are being lumped in with landlords. That makes no sense. One of our cottages is over 180 years old, built with cob walls. Getting it to EPC C is simply unrealistic. More importantly, our cottages are not ASTs. We do not have tenants paying bills – we pay them; and due to seasonality we have lower occupancy even through winter. The comparison just does not hold.
That does not mean the sector does not need regulation. It does. In fact, many of us have been calling for it for years. There are plenty of rogue operators who do not pay for waste collection services, do not carry proper public liability insurance, or do not meet even basic safety requirements. If the government really wants to clean up holiday lets, start there. Enforce those simple, obvious rules and a whole swathe of unsuitable operators would disappear overnight. Anyone in the busines could spend 5 minutes on Airbnb and spot listings that would not last a week under proper enforcement.
But here is the crucial point. Done properly, government policy could achieve its goals more effectively by supporting businesses like ours rather than undermining them.
If passive holiday-home owners in our village closed, the demand would not vanish. It would flow into businesses like ours. That is trade going into the hands of people who live locally, employ locally, and spend locally. That is exactly what communities want: tourism income without hollowing out housing stock.
And do not forget, many farms and rural businesses were actively encouraged to diversify into holiday accommodation. Now the rug has been pulled from underneath them.
There is a fairer way.
It is not hard to tell the difference between passive holiday-home landlords and genuine owner-operators:
- Do you live at the same address as your lets?
- Do you personally do the core work (cleaning, maintenance, guest contact)?
- Do you operate a small number of units?
These are just some simple example tests that would allow government to discourage speculative investment while supporting hands-on small businesses.
This is bigger than Cornwall. There are owner-operators across the UK in exactly this situation: working full time, supporting local economies, but currently treated as though we are part of the problem.
I do not want sympathy, and I do not want violins. What I want, what we want, is recognition that this is work. It is a business. And it deserves to be treated fairly alongside B&Bs, hotels and holiday parks.
If you run your lets this way, or you know someone who does, I would love to hear from you. Let us start building a collective voice for owner-operators, so that when we speak, we speak together.
