Abandoned houses

[user64332]

I pass an abandoned house everyday on the school run and I'm so curious about how it came to be left. someone's life just frozen in time. It has a Lexus parked outside that is growing weeds and moss around the wheels, inside is spotlessly clean, no trace or belongings but part of the interior is now sun faded. The window frames are rotting, the front and back garden has very tall weeds, but you can tell it was once neat and well kept. It is a shame to see such a solid period house rotting needlessly. It is semi detached and the house next door, and all the others on the street are in perfect condition.

I can't help wonder how on earth this happened? If someone owed money they surely would have their property and car repossessed. If they died with no next of kin, doesn't the state claim the property? What happens? Has anyone ever lived next to a house like this and found out the story?

I see plenty of dilapidated and falling down houses with boarded up windows and rubbish filled gardens and assume they were worth very little and hard to sellnand further deterioted, but this one with the expensive car parked outside obviously has a different story.

We see one on the school run too! It's been abandoned for years. The upper windows are smashed so I bet birds are nesting in there. There's a van and a car in the drive, both dilapidated and windows smashed. I can see into the back garden and it's an absolute jungle!

There's another YouTube channel called Bros of Decay - they go round some amazing abandoned buildings (in Belgium mainly but other places too). Some beautiful chateaus and houses just left to rot. I love watching these and they're also very respectful and leave everything as they find it.

There was a beautiful house in the prestigious area of town. It's windows were sealed with metal shutters. The owners had rented it out and it was a cannabis farm - the interior was destroyed

There is a house like this not far from me. Its a mid 20th Century detached house. The windows are boarded up and it’s obviously in a bad state of repair and the garden is overgrown. It has a satellite dish on the side so I’m guessing it was lived in up until around the 1990’s, but then left to rot.

It’s in a bit of an odd place. In the middle of nowhere set back off the road and near a railway line, but there are houses nearby that are obviously occupied so I don’t think that would be a reason for it being left like that.

I do find it fascinating and sad at the same time. I often see abandoned houses and wonder how it happens. Maybe because we come from an average income family but I would just sell a house. It would make me sadder to think of my parents house going unloved.

Interesting thread. I never knew councils had to buy abandoned houses.

@35andThriving

Interesting thread. I never knew councils had to buy abandoned houses.

Well, it isn't as straightforward as that. They have legal powers to do it. They have legal obligation to employ people to identify and bring back into occupation. But they don't have any oversight or monitoring to see what they do, if anything. The theoretical process would be to trace and persuade the owner, then threaten and as a last resort issue a compulsory purchase order (There are other powers, regarding public hazard and so on, so councils can, if they wish, move their own contractors in to clean up or repair, but that too is not used as often as it probably ought to be) The cost to the council can be made a charge registered against the title at the Land Registry.

To be fair to them, it is common for the owner to be hard or impossible to trace, and also, the legal costs plus the cost of restoring to habitable condition can be greater than the worth of the property.

To be unfair to them , someone somewhere in the local authority may or may not have some undeclared contact with the owner (or hidden owner), who may have every incentive to make the property derelict and boarded up, though possibly leaving a way in for an intruder (or, to a cynic, a well paid 'vagrant') This would be with the hope of the building becoming beyond repair, due to an arsonist and/or neglect .

I don't know if it is still happening, but fires were surprisingly frequent after sales, in an area I once lived, where old Listed Zone houses, which would not otherwise get permission to be demolished, stood in large grounds. After the building had been accidentally destroyed enough to be beyond repair, those grounds could form the site for an entire estate-full of new-builds.
The combination of looking deserted and looking boarded up would be useful to show everything reasonable had been done. Now, with the continuing stoking of artificial house price inflation, the attraction of just hanging on to empty property is ever greater. (I heard this is a plague situation in parts of Hampstead, where nominal owners are not necessarily U.K resident.)

Slight derail, but previous posts mention overseas properties, and there are special warnings for Brits. For example, the Spanish law and no doubt others, on inheritance, can mean someone pops up years after supposedly the property is sold, and has a right to be a right nuisance, because uncle tom cobley and all are entitled to inherit, and this one wasn't traced or was, and wouldn't agree terms.
There are lots, in Spain, e.g. your house is just off the main road, on a side road, where later a development happens, and because you and the developer are the only ones using the road, you share costs of upgrading the road and services.
Another example is where the local Mayor 'ownership' of the area changes hands (It's often two rival dynasties, swapping power and feuding) The Mayoral approval of planning can be rescinded by the incoming enemy Mayor.

People need interpreters and local advisers and lawyers, but some of the things taken for granted in one country astound people in another.

I don't know if it is still happening, but fires were surprisingly frequent after sales,

Landlord lightning.

I almost posted this earlier

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_purchase_in_England_and_Wales

as a guide to the complications of forcibly taking someones land away.

If people were really bothered about empty properties, then a much more efficient way to prevent it happening is a revised system of taxation. However this wouldn't suit the people that really matter in England, so isn't happening anytime soon. In fact we're more likely to see the opposite movement, whereby land and property are slowly lifted out of taxation which is shifted back to individuals again. Thus achieving the original aim of the poll tax of keeping the riff raff from voting, while at the same time allowing property developers and speculators to snap up land with no costs.

I moved over 30 years ago as a child and was always fascinated by a couple of small derilict cottages built backed on to some shops also Victorian. They are still derilict although the roof has survived. A friend of the family entered and took photos when the boarding off the door came off, and it is still much as it was 40+ years ago when it was abandoned. No utilities ever installed. The plot is too small to do anything with for redeveloping.

On our old road there was a major fire a few years ago. The chap got out with relatively minor injuries, but the house was gutted, partly because he was a hoarder so the fire spread rapidly. His hoard of cars are still parked up outside, most of which haven't moved in the decade since I moved or long before. It was a neatly looked after house although dating. I'm guessing he was a procrastinator. The house has been made weather tight with some replacement windows and a new roof, but other progress has stopped. I wonder if it was under-insured. Certainly the interior is still peeling fire/ smoke damage from the view in the windows and door still boarded up rather than replaced. It's a sad sight on a well looked after street, and he was a nice chap to small talk with in passing on a summer's evening. All that's really left is the decrepit cars outside. He's probably mid-70s. I remember him being newly retired. I'm assuming that one day it will go to auction, but too much time is passing to imagine him moving back or finishing renovation.

Slight derail, but previous posts mention overseas properties, and there are special warnings for Brits. For example, the Spanish law and no doubt others, on inheritance, can mean someone pops up years after supposedly the property is sold, and has a right to be a right nuisance, because uncle tom cobley and all are entitled to inherit, and this one wasn't traced or was, and wouldn't agree terms.

Differing countries have differing ideas on land ownership. England and Wales are ultimately all the gift of the Crown. Don't even think about challenging that. It was established in 1066 and has held sway ever since.

One problem in Europe - depending where - is also provenance of land. There was a story a few years back where people were sold land in Cyprus that had been captured in the war with Turkey had to relinquish it without compensation.

euobserver.com/justice/28029

There are plenty of places around the world - even elsewhere in Europe - that might be subject to similar claims.

A terraced house on my street was derelict for some years. The word was that the owner went into a home, and was unable to understand the situation or take action. It became a crack den and the houses next door must have been in constant fear of fire. Eventually thank god a property developer with contacts at the council managed to persuade them to push through a compulsory purchase, and bought it off the council. According to public records the developer turned it around in a year and increased the price from 200K to 700K - I suspect the work required would have cost 250 maximum because the house was basically structurally sound. I don’t begrudge them a penny of their profit though because terraced houses in that state are a real menace, and if a property developer pocketing a large profit is what it takes to turn them into a lovely family home then I’ll settle for that.

@ProfessorSlocombe

I don't know if it is still happening, but fires were surprisingly frequent after sales,

Landlord lightning.

I almost posted this earlier

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_purchase_in_England_and_Wales

as a guide to the complications of forcibly taking someones land away.

If people were really bothered about empty properties, then a much more efficient way to prevent it happening is a revised system of taxation. However this wouldn't suit the people that really matter in England, so isn't happening anytime soon. In fact we're more likely to see the opposite movement, whereby land and property are slowly lifted out of taxation which is shifted back to individuals again. Thus achieving the original aim of the poll tax of keeping the riff raff from voting, while at the same time allowing property developers and speculators to snap up land with no costs.

Prof.S I like your thinking. With modern technology, a revaluation would be easy, then instead of council tax the property owner could pay in proportion to the value of the asset. It would incentivise absentees, and multiple owners, and under occupiers, to reconsider. If the owner was hard to find, making a Land Registry charge against the property is simple for the council. Legislation could set a limit, e.g. if the debt reaches a proportion of the value, compulsory purchase is automatic.
That would correct an unfairness, that people in a several million pound Mayfair flat pay council tax on a valuation assessed under the old scheme, meaning they may pay less than someone in a newbuild, assessed at a value near the sale price, or even an over valuation, since some flats with cladding and ground rent scams and other problems now have zero worth, due to the chicanery permitted for property developers. It would be possible, too, to tax the redevelopment value, since the planning authority is in effect handing out, free, consent to turn a field worth hundreds into a field worth millions, with nothing coming back to the local government funds .

But a court application can be made if beneficiaries disagree over what is to happen over a property that more than one person has a share in ?

AFAIK the court can order a sale .So there is no need for bitter family disputes to leave properties empty and rotting .

Derelict house next to my mother was eventually auctioned by local authority .They had exhausted efforts to trace anyone with an interest and it was sold so that outstanding council tax could be claimed .

House like this near us. It's been empty for at least 2 years. Before there was an old person who I guess is now in a home. It looks so out of place though, all the other houses are pristine nearby. And the garden is wild but beautiful in summer.

There's also the additional fun in England and Wales (can't speak for Scotland) that not all land is registered - or will ever be registered - with the land registry. And if land is registered, there's very little anyone can do about it. Especially since you'd never get the political will.

All we know is that generally, a lot of land is held by very few - shockingly few - people.

There’s something intriguing about things falling into ruin, as if nature can take over again as a PP said. If you want to see examples on a larger scale there was a book a few years ago called “The ruins of Detroit” that showed not just houses but stations, theatres, libraries, etc all in ruins as the city has declined. We’ve got the book - the pictures are moving and strangely beautiful - and there are quite a few examples online as well if you Google “ruins of Detroit”.

The owner could be in prison,or longterm hospital care, or living/working abroad. Loads of perfectly reasonable explanations.

@DuckonaBike

There’s something intriguing about things falling into ruin, as if nature can take over again as a PP said. If you want to see examples on a larger scale there was a book a few years ago called “The ruins of Detroit” that showed not just houses but stations, theatres, libraries, etc all in ruins as the city has declined. We’ve got the book - the pictures are moving and strangely beautiful - and there are quite a few examples online as well if you Google “ruins of Detroit”.

It's quite amazing how quickly properties simply crumble to dust once the roof has gone. Vegetation (trees included) just rip into the walls and a few storms it's all rubble. Especially if lightning hits and the whole lot goes up in flames.

We had one in our area. The man went into a nursing home and died. He had no relatives. It’s been empty for about 8 years and has just been sold.

I almost bought a house next door to an abandoned house. It put me off in the end because the garden of the abandoned one was so overgrown that it was full of rats and when I spoke to the tenant of the house I was buying by chance he mentioned it! I reported it to the council and they added it to their list of abandoned homes. I think it's quite difficult for them to do anything about it.

There's a pub near me that's derelict, it attracts all sorts of ner do wells, god knows what's inside. It's half boarded up but clearly gets broken into all the time. Looks awful, there are a load of rooms out the back too like an American motel. Sad.

I often pass what appears to be an abandoned house, It is in a popular area and would be quite in demand if it went for sale.
I know someone who was connected to the house and it turns out that there is a neighbour dispute. Someone has done stuff which should not have been done or allowed, and they have failed to comply with legislation on another matter. This has damaged the abandoned house. The owner is a very elderly person and can not stand up to the neighbours so left the property until it is made safe to live in using legal processes which as we all know will take a long time and the house will deteriorate further.