John Consiglio has often written on unused property, now with an outdated solution.

His contribution (July 28) suggests “empowering the government to at some stage confiscate property, upgrade it itself and, if need be, use it for social housing, if and when levied taxes on such properties are not duly paid”.

Such confiscation is a breach of Malta’s fundamental law, the Constitution (article 1 – Protocol; article 37).

Consiglio is goading the government to act illegally. This is intrinsically unacceptable in a free democracy. It was tried elsewhere and discontinued.

It would send the wrong signal to investors.

This suggestion leads to political suicide. There are many property owners and such confiscation goes against the interest of a substantial lobby (remember the abandoned requisition orders of the 1970s?). No political party would adopt this suggestion.

On balance, it would lose votes and general support.

His suggestion is economically stifling and unencouraging.

Cash is another form of capital; there are (unused) millions held at banks, some at negative interest. The next logical expansive step would be to also confiscate cash.

His overall worrisome proposal is not limited to immovable  property owners.

Consiglio’s suggestion is the stick at its worst: a measure of the past, politically unjust, retrograde, found wanting and discarded.

The solution should be the carrot. The willing owners, together with the banks, with fiscal advantages thrown in, can re-pristine unused property with the ‘unused’ funds, to be then sold or rented, giving a more rewarding return to the bank, owner, acquirer and the government, besides providing a social (and aesthetic) benefit.

His final argument, that “Other countries have such laws, so we would not be reinventing the wheel”, is non-consequential. Adopting foreign laws need not be beneficial to our special local scenario; simply aping them does not make sense.