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HOMELESSNESS
Around 84,000 family units and individuals
are officially designated homeless in England, while
countless others on low incomes struggle to find a place
of their own. Yet at the latest count, England had
729,770 empty homes, and the picture is not dissimilar in
other parts of the United Kingdom. Nor are the 'empties'
restricted to run-down towns in the north of England:
183,000 are in London and the South East, the region
where demand is highest and shortage of housing for key
workers has reached crisis levels. This paradox will be
highlighted during national Empty Homes Week when local
authorities will be hosting a range of initiatives aimed
at getting uninhabited properties back into use.
The Government is already attacking the empty homes
problem: in February Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott
set out plans for compulsory leasing powers to allow
local authorities to take over and lease out privately
owned properties that are left empty. In addition, from
next April, authorities will no longer have to offer a
50% discount on council tax to those whose property is
empty for more than six months.
Empty homes can also be bad news for neighbours and can
depress property prices. The Empty Homes Agency claims a
long-term vacant property next door can knock 10% off the
value of your own property, and encourages people to
report such properties to their local authority. Estate
agent Jeremy Leaf, housing spokesman for the Royal
Institution of Chartered Surveyors, says: "It can
certainly have a detrimental effect on neighbouring
properties if it is empty long term; it may become a
haven for drug dealing or vermin, and there may be
structural implications such as damp, which can spread
next door."
So why are so many properties empty? Some are between
tenants, and some are being sold. It is the longer-term
empties which are the cause of concern. Rosie May, of the
Empty Homes Agency, explains, "There are people who
have been left a property and don't know what to do with
it, and there are others who own a property which needs
refurbishment, but they can't afford it." Or there
are owners in prison, in hospital, caring for relatives
or working abroad. "We came across a case in
Eastbourne," says May, "where a guy had kept a
house empty because his wife had left 10 years earlier
and he was still hoping she would come back."
Then, of course, there are the private landlords who hold
property as investments, 'landbanking', May says, and
choose to keep it empty. It may seem strange that anybody
would choose to keep a property empty rather than have a
tenant paying rent, but with prices rising as quickly as
they have in the past few years, capital returns have
dwarfed rental income in many cases. Leaf says there may
be various reasons for keeping a property empty:
"There are investment companies who don't want to
spend the money on refurbishing, and there are people who
own property but don't want to sell because that would
crystallise a gain or a loss."
As house prices level off, keeping property empty for
speculative reasons looks a much less attractive option,
since owners will have to set little or no return against
depreciation, maintenance and expenses such as council
tax. But Leaf believes some owners of empty properties
will still be reluctant to sell in the expectation of
long-term gains. The Empty Homes Agency is campaigning
for local authorities to take a much more pro-active
stance in bringing empty, privately-owned properties back
into use. Authorities are encouraged to develop a
database of properties kept empty, and to offer
refurbishment grants, advice on letting and council
leases to owners, to persuade them to let their property.
If private landlords don't respond, compulsory leasing
will provide a more powerful weapon in the local
authorities' armoury. One that has already taken more
radical steps is Coventry City Council. Dean Cooper, the
city's Empty Homes Officer, says he has 300 long-term
empty properties on his books, and around half the owners
have failed to respond to queries about their property,
or to 'carrots' such as a council refurbish-and-lease
scheme. In the past 12 months, the council prosecuted two
owners who failed to carry out renovations ordered by its
environmental health department. "It sends out a
signal that we mean business," says Cooper.
The council is also prepared to issue compulsory purchase
orders. In the last financial year, some 120 empty
properties were brought back into use through a
combination of stick and carrot, while three were
demolished. Second homes which are kept empty for much of
the year are also an issue. In statistics compiled by the
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the authority which
has the greatest proportion of 'empty homes' in England
(more than 12%) is South Hams in Devon, incorporating
Salcombe and Dartmouth. (They are recorded as 'empty'
because owners pay only 50% council tax if the property
is occupied for less than six months.)
Richard Younge, leader of South Hams District Council,
says, "Across South Hams, 11% of all properties are
second homes, and in East Portlemouth, it is approaching
60%. This has a very bad effect: house prices here are
around 10 times the average wage, and last year we had to
put 20 families into B&Bs for the first time."
Younge says abolishing the council tax discount for
second homes could raise an extra £2.2 million. He would
like to spend this on extra housing, but the authority
may not be allowed to keep the money. And he has little
hope that the increase in council tax will discourage
second-home owners, "If you can afford to pay
£300,000 for a second home, you are not going to worry
about an extra £800." (Source: The Observer)
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