Long-term empty home owners may be forced to sell

OWNERS of ‘long-term’ empty  houses could be forced to sell  them under plans being drawn  up by Plymouth City Council to  bring 234 vacant private properties back into use.

The council’s ‘trailblazing’ Empty Homes Team is working with  other departments to draw up  proposals ‘to force the sale of  privately owned, long term empty properties’.

 But the authority stressed the  enforcement action will only  happen in cases where owners  owe the council money and have  either been ‘unwilling or unable  to deal with the property and its  associated problems’.

The action is seen as one solution to problems caused by  abandoned properties.

A three-year plan will go before  the council’s Cabinet for approval on July 15.

The Empty Homes Team intends to use ‘a variety of innovative measures’, in addition  to enforcement ‘to tackle the  problem of houses lying empty  for years whilst the city’s low  earners struggle to find affordable housing’.

These include:

 converting and re-using  empty properties

making the best use of  brownfield sites

supporting regeneration of  deprived neighbourhoods

encouraging more owners to  let their properties.

The Empty Homes Strategy  aims to ‘increase the city’s supply of decent, energy efficient  and affordable private homes’.

Cllr Peter Brookshaw, Cabinet  member for Housing and Safer  Communities, said: “It’s a disgraceful waste to have so many  homes standing empty for long  periods of time when affordable  housing is in such short supply.

“Besides anything else, these  properties are a blight on their  local neighbourhoods and often  prove a magnet for anti social  behaviour such as graffiti, fly  tipping and vandalism.”

During the past five years the  Empty Home Team has brought  505 houses back into use.

 Between April 2003 and April  2007 the number of private sector homes left empty for more  than six months dropped by  1,596.

The team worked on projects  with nine social landlords  which, with the council, make  up the Plymouth Empty Homes  Partnership.

This  included persuading owners of long-term empty, and often run-down, properties to  either renovate or sell.

The team also took compulsory  purchase action against owners  who were impossible to trace.

And under its HouseLet  scheme, the team used 62 previously empty homes as good  quality, temporary accommodation for nearly 350 homeless  families who would otherwise  have been housed in  bed-and-breakfast accommodation.

It also works with Devonport  LOTS (Living Over the Shop), a  project, in partnership with  Sarsen Housing Association, to  provide flats for rent.

 LOTS is funded by£220,000  from Devonport Regeneration  Community Partnership,  £102,000 of Housing Corporation Temporary Social Housing  Grant and £380,000 from owners of commercial premises.

David Ireland, chief executive of  the charitable Empty Homes  Agency, said: “Plymouth City  Council has a fine record of action to tackle the scandal of  empty property.

“Its strategy of combining prevention, support for owners and  a willingness to take enforcement action where necessary  demonstrates good practice in  empty homes work.”