A REPORT by Bricks and Mortar last month on the scandal of Britain’s 840,000
empty homes provoked an extraordinary response from readers. There was a
sense of outrage that local councils, in particular, were allowing
properties to stand vacant, unrepaired and unmanaged. In other cases we
heard from families weary of pursuing the owner of a derelict property on
their street whose state of disrepair was affecting not only the value of
neighbouring homes but also damaging their fabric. The Government has
promised that these homes will be part of the solution to Britain’s housing
crisis, but the reaction to our report indicated that there seemed scant
evidence of this in many areas, despite the efforts of the more enlightened
councils.
The Empty Homes Agency, the body set up to highlight this problem, is calling
for next week to be a national week of action on the affair. Why, for
example, do nine large empty houses on a former United Kingdom Atomic Energy
site in Harwell, Oxfordshire, face demolition in a region where such homes
are scarce and expensive? Why do six similar properties in a popular part of
Liverpool also stand empty?
Some councils are trying to tackle the problem, putting empty homes reported
by the public to use. The Canopy Housing project in Leeds, for example, is
helping homeless young people to renovate empty council houses and then
benefit by being offered a tenancy in the completed homes. PLACE (Private
Lease Agreement Converting Empties), an initiative in Essex and
Hertfordshire, provides grants for repairs to run-down empty homes to enable
them to be used as affordable housing.
David Ireland, chief executive of the Empty Homes Agency, welcomes positive
initiatives from councils but still fears that the Government sees building
more homes as the sole solution: “All too often empty homes are overlooked
and nobody takes responsibility for getting them into use.”
THE FRUSTRATED NEIGHBOUR
BEVERLEY PLATT, above, is worried that her home in Forest Hill, South London,
is losing value simply because she lives next door to an empty property.
“I’ve done my research and discovered that, because of next door, I could
lose between 10 and 20 per cent on the value of my house.” She isangry, and
with reason, as this could amount to £51,600, according to Home-track, which
puts the average price of a terraced house in SE23 at £258,000.
When Platt moved in six years ago, her neighbour had been forced to move out
because of subsidence. Scaffolding was put up and a trench was dug in the
back garden, then work was suddenly abandoned. Nothing happened for some
time, so Beverley contacted her local planning office – but received little
help.
Eventually, by pestering her local council, Lewisham, she was contacted by
Nick Long, the borough’s Empty Homes Officer. Under the 2004 Housing Act,
councils have the power to take over properties under an Empty Dwelling
Management Order (EDMO). This allows a council to step into the shoes of the
owner of a property that has been unoccupied for six months or more, where
the owner is not intending to reoccupy it. There are two types of order:
interim and final. They allow a local authority to secure occupation and
proper management of privately owned houses and flats that have been
unoccupied for a specified period and where certain other conditions are
met. The council must apply to a residential property tribunal to authorise
the interim order, which precedes the final EDMO.
The local authority may not sell the property but can carry out work to make
the property fit to occupy and can also let it.
Lewisham is the most active borough in London when it comes to empty homes,
obtaining two EDMOs to date. Long explains that, with so many families
desperate for a home, “we thought that enough was enough and decided to put
the powers of EDMOs into action.”
Platt gave evidence at the hearing last month. She took pictures of the
property and cited problems with antisocial behaviour, break-ins and drug
use. It was discovered that the neighbour had difficulties with her
insurance claim and had to stop the work because of a lack of money. Long
emphasises that the council is able to assist with this: “We are aware that
the owner is desperate to complete the work and move back into the property.
We are offering grants to help her to achieve this.” The tribunal will
announce its decision in the new year.
THE EMPTY ROW OF HOUSES
SIX large Victorian houses in Liverpool’s smart Newsham Park district, some
owned by the council, are currently lying empty and unmanaged. Two years
ago, a local resident, Jonathan Brown, became frustrated with these
eyesores, pictured above, and, with other local residents, started to look
into what could be done.
“The damage to these properties was getting worse by the month. Many had been
ruined by fires and most of the architectural features had been stolen,”
Brown says. His research uncovered a little-known piece of planning
legislation dating to 1980 known as a “PROD” – a Public Request to Order
Disposal – which applies to publicly owned land that is harming the amenity
of an area. He immediately applied for these houses to come under a PROD.
“Apparently it had been ten years since this legislation had been used,” Brown
says, so he was not sure if it would work. Against all odds, it seemed to
have done the trick. In 2006, in one of her first decisions as Minister for
Housing and Planning, Ruth Kelly served notice on Liverpool City Council,
forcing it to sell off these houses if they did not deal with them within a
year because they were blighting one of Liverpool’s finest historic parks.
This was over a year ago and, according to Brown, nothing seems to have
happened. The trouble is that the damage has got worse in that time and
Brown is worried that the properties will deteriorate to the point where
demolition is the only option. He says: “A survey was recently done on these
properties, and currently the houses are technically salvageable.” But for
how much longer?
The hold-up seems to be that the council is planning to turn this row of
houses into flats – some of which would be for sale and some for rent. All
but one of the six houses in the row has been bought by the council, and
negotiations are continuing with the remaining owner.
A spokesman for Liverpool City Council was sympathetic to the local residents.
He said: “I can understand their frustration, but these projects take time.
Until they can see physical things happening on the ground they won’t
believe the development is going to happen.”
He confirmed that the properties were under a PROD for a short amount of time
but it was suspended when the council reported to the Government on its
proposed redevelopment of the site. The aim is to refurbish the properties
wherever possible, rather than to replace them. The council is currently
seeking planning permission for the project.
Brown is exasperated by the whole situation. “It is bizarre to me that these
houses have been kept empty when local developers have put offers forward to
do up the properties. At the end of the day they are nice big houses that
need to be lived in instead of lying empty.”
THE COUNCIL INITIATIVE
A “NO USE EMPTY” initiative by Kent County Council has brought more than 30
per cent of the 3,000 empty homes in east Kent back into use within two
years.
“The campaign was started in April 2005. We targeted the owners in some of the
most deprived wards in Kent where there was a large number of empty
properties,” says Susan Pledger, the project manager for the East Kent Empty
Property Initiative. The areas tackled were Dover, Shepway, Swale and
Thanet. The aim was to put 372 properties back into use by April 2008: so
far, 387 homes have been rescued.
Part of the initiative involved the launch of a loan scheme, under which the
council offers finance to owners to enable them to furnish the property. The
first to take advantage of this grant was Hugh Denning, left. Denning, 49,
has been buying and renovating properties for three years but even he was
shocked at the state of the property that he bought in Margate in December.
“It was in a terrible state. Practically derelict. The garden area was so
overgrown you could hardly see the house,” he says. It wasn’t until after he
had bought the property that he realised that he could apply for a grant,
which he did in February. Denning says that it was a lengthy procedure, but
he finally received £25,000 in September. However, he accepts that the new
scheme was just bedding in: “I was the first to apply for a grant, and there
are bound to be a few gremlins in the system.”
Work on the property is expected to be completed before Christmas, and he will
then put it on the market. Denning is rather pleased: “That’s not bad going,
really, is it? I bought the property late last year and, all being well, the
property should be in use early next year.”
WHAT YOU SAY
WE asked you to give us your views on the scandal of Britain’s empty
homes, to offer your solution, and to send in photos for our “rogues’
gallery”. Here is a cross-section of your responses:
I have allowed a property to remain empty for the last seven years. Why?
Because the local authority’s highways department continually finds reasons
to oppose planning/development proposals on the ground of road safety. Gerald
Dyson, Leeds
Why do you (ie, Mr Dyson, above) not rent out the property while waiting for
planning permission? You get a little extra income and someone else gets a
home – surely you both win. Seven years is longer than some people own a
home. Lewis, London
A large property in Sydenham Road, Croydon, has been derelict for years and I
featured it on www.croydoniscrap.com, the website where I name and shame
squalid buildings, derelict land and streets that are a blight on the
community and the environment. Croydon council claimed in April that it had
approved an application to build flats there. However, as yet, there is no
sign of any building work commencing. Ken Frost, Croydon
I heard this week from an estate agent friend that some 3,000 new houses
already lie empty in Hampshire, as well as a couple of thousand new flats in
Southampton alone. Why are we building more? Is it that we have built the
wrong ones or that people just cannot afford them? Andy Webb, Southampton
It is not too difficult to eliminate the housing problem. Owners of empty
properties, residential and commercial, should be charged the full council
tax or commercial rates on these properties and this should be increased by,
say, 15 per cent every six months. Adrian, London
Local councils should buy up all the empty houses in the UK and rent them out
at 15 per cent of income. Harry Wolf, Vancouver, Canada
We live in a small village just outside Norwich. There is a lovely house right
next to the school that has stood derelict for years – it is quite immoral
that such property should simply go to waste. I am no socialist but the
owner should at the very least be paying full council tax, since we have to
provide the facilities as if they lived in the property. Huw Sayer,
Norwich
HELPLINE
The Empty Homes Agency is launching a “national week of action” on Monday. For
advice or to report a property, log on to http://www.emptyhomes.com
or call 0870 9016303.
You can also inform your local council, which has the power to place an empty
dwelling management order (EDMO).
If all else fails, start a local campaign.
Other useful websites suggested by readers include www.no-use-empty.org
and www.northlondonemptyproperties.co.uk
In our municipality all properties are subject to rates whether occupied or not, if unoccupied for more than 12 months a surcharge is added. I think demolishing does reduce the rates but not the obligation to maintain the land which the Council does if necessary, and then charges the owner. Once the debt to the Council builds up the Sheriff can then auction the property with any excess held in trust for the owner if they are untraceable. The full rates have been in place as long as I can remember but the surcharge is new and is making a difference.
Some of these actions are probably related to the fire danger overgrown derelict properties present in Australia.
Gwenda, Melbourne, Australia
No council should be allowed to grab privately owned emptly properties while that council has even one empty property of their own.
This is not Stalinist Russia and we used to have property rights. Perhaps the people who are so keen to grab what belongs to someone else should think about that and wonder what will happen in the future when someone casts a greedy eye over what they own.
Nick, Birmingham,
Liverpool City Council is by some way the worst offender in the country - 16,000 homes across the city are empty (7% of total properties) despite a housing waiting list of 20,000 people.
Even more scandalously, 34% of the empty properties are owned by the council itself, and its Social Landlord partners. Most are being boarded up for demolition under John Prescortt's hated 'Pathfinder' clearance programme so that land deals can be done with four big developers.
Ironic that Prescot Drive is the example in your article - two Jag's Liverpool legacy!
Jonathan, Liverpool, England
Any property be it residential or commercial which stands empty for more than 3 months should be subject to the normal Council tax ,with the proviso that if it remains empty the tax will be increased by ,say 20% every three months. This will make it most unattractive for property owners/speculators/developers to have empty properties. The revenues should be used for social housing or buy properties that have been empty for 12 months. Councillors of councils that own empty properties should be surcharged personally with the council tax and business rates that could and should have been collected on these empty properties. This may a little draconian but there will be few empty properties within one year and the cost of housing and absurd cost of leasing commercial properties will fall drastically.
Paul, London, UK
Here in Australia, Land Tax (levied on the unimproved value of a property not the owner's principal place of residence) ensures few dwellings remain unused for long. At up to 1.7% of the aggregate value of all properties you own, with a threshold equivalent to the land value of an average property, this quickly becomes punitive unless you rent it. To double the impact, the Land Tax is a tax deduction only if you use the property for income production.
Of course, it does not apply to government-owned property, ensuring that when a school is closed it can remain vacant for years, accumulating broken windows and graffiti while locals fight for its re-use as any sort of educational facility, instead of it being sold to lowest-common-denominator developers.
termite, Brisbane, Australia
One solution for houses that have been left empty for longer than a year and allowed to deteriorate. The government should legislate for them to be compulsorily acquired at fair market value and sold on to bona fide occupiers or made into public housing. That would remove the need to trash so much of the countryside with new build estates.
Clarina, Sydney, Melbourne