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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask who the hell owns all the..

223 replies

OftenHangry · 04/12/2018 15:15

... empty properties?

There is over 200 000 empty properties in England only.
200 000!
There is a housing crisis yet lots of people leave houses to rot and instead new ones have to be built (and they are much dearer to buy).

There is a house near mine which I suspect is empty, so I checked google and this number came up. 200 000....

Gobsmacked. Why would someone just let a house sit empty?

OP posts:
Abra1de · 04/12/2018 15:16

It breaks my heart to see empty houses and then a field and hedge being dig up for new ones to be built.

TeeBee · 04/12/2018 15:19

I keep saying it...we don't have a housing crisis, we have a housing allocation crisis. The quality of these new houses being thrown up is absolutely diabolical too. I wouldn't buy one with someone else's money...ever!

TeeBee · 04/12/2018 15:20

On the plus side, if you currently have an older/character property, hold onto it. As soon as everyone realises how shockingly bad new houses are built, yours will become more valuable.

AdamNichol · 04/12/2018 15:26

Westminster council allegedly owns enough empty buildings to home all the homeless folks on their streets.
I went for a teaching job in stratford a while back, new school and estate on the olympic site. There was a requirement that something like 30% of the new flat sales had to be to owner occupiers, otherwise conglomerates buy them all up and keep them empty for investment.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 04/12/2018 15:31

I just check and my local council has 466 empty homes and 534 local people in priority need.

Assuming that some those people will be families/couple we too could have all local people housed if the empty properties were to be made available. Currently 31 of them are undergoing renovation...

Sirzy · 04/12/2018 15:33

Some will be the result of people dying with no family and no will

boringlyboring · 04/12/2018 15:35

Our council has a separate ‘open to all’ list of houses, which used to have around 50 properties that anyone could bid on. You didn’t need to go through the ‘needs’ assessment, just register on the website. It was the same ones on the system all the time, because they couldn’t let them for whatever reason. There was a variety, from 1 bed flats to 3 bed houses. But every day that I worked there, people in need of emergency housing (ie no roof over their heads) were turned to hostels etc.

I know these are a drop in the ocean but I wonder how many other councils have the same process.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 04/12/2018 15:35

Looking at nearby councils it seems to be a good time to look, it was Empty Homes week a couple of weeks ago!

DonaldDucksTowel · 04/12/2018 15:36

There’s a house on our street that has been empty for a few years and after being a bit nosy when I saw someone in it a few months ago I discovered that no-one knows who owns it so it’s been tied up in all kinds of legal stuff for years while it’s being decided what to do and who gets it

Sounds bloody daft to me, just give it to the council and let a family in need have it surely 🤷🏻‍♀️

Hadalifeonce · 04/12/2018 15:36

I believe if a property remains empty and neglected for more than 2 years, the LA should be able to acquire it and use it for social housing.

ChardonnaysPrettySister · 04/12/2018 15:37

Developers.

There are so many empty flats in London that just won’t shift because of their inflated prices.

Yet we are told we need more building.,

BatsAreCool · 04/12/2018 15:38

What do you mean by empty houses?

When I moved in with my DH my house was empty until I decided to sell it. When my DM died hers was empty until after probate was approved.

Those two houses were empty but certainly not anyone else's to occupy.

Sausagefingers9 · 04/12/2018 15:40

Where I used to live there is a whole estate of boarded up houses. It’s a very rough area.

I’m guessing that figure is made up of a lot of places like this.

mummymeister · 04/12/2018 15:40

I think that's right hadalifeonce but that presumes that they have the money to buy it and the inclination to own houses which some LA don't unfortunately.

I 100% agree with TeeBee. we do not have a housing shortage we have an allocation problem. all LA know which houses are empty in their area because they probably aren't getting council tax for them. so why on earth aren't they being proactive. the government could change this from 2 years to 6 months or even 12 months and make it a requirement that the LA has to purchase them for the stock. money could be made available. but that wouldn't suit the housebuilders and the land grabbers who hold onto development land for years and years.

Neweternal · 04/12/2018 15:40

Couple of times had empty properties. It's important to list them as empty for half price council tax. Anyway, one was left 4 years a large detached home. Inheritance and my crazy brother refused to sell. I had to start court action to conclude. Another time bought a property required change of use and basically sometimes tenants can be expensive and not worth the hassle. Better just sitting there and sell when ready a year or two.

masterandmargarita · 04/12/2018 15:41

I know and in cities so many massive old buildings with trees growing out of them

Neweternal · 04/12/2018 15:43

Council empty houses! Are you implying council state homes? You know that the council states every home noted as vacant owned or otherwise? People do buy houses as investments and don't live in them.

SpoonBlender · 04/12/2018 15:43

Housing investors own them, mostly. They're not interested in landlording, it's not worth the effort, they're just using properties as investments. Quite a lot of London is owned like this, with no intent to use it as housing at all.

Troels · 04/12/2018 15:45

There was something on TV the other day about the military has whole housing estates of houses that they won't let to anyone, just in case they might need them, they are rotting and have been vandalised. So are of no use for immediate use, they need a lot of updating and repair to be livable. What a waste.

Gaspodethetalkingdog · 04/12/2018 15:46

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Becca19962014 · 04/12/2018 15:47

I know of one close to where I live which became completely vacant after the owner died. No family. No friends. No one to leave it to and he didn't have a will. It's being left to fall down, literally it's unsafe to enter, not only is it empty but it's beginning to badly effect the properties either side as it does so - one is a shop and you can see looking at the wall how badly it's effected.

The council say they can do nothing.

Hadalifeonce · 04/12/2018 15:47

I wasn't suggesting the LA should buy them, there are many empty houses where no one knows who owns them, the LA should be able to acquire them, not buy them.

Bittermints · 04/12/2018 15:49

I've occasionally seen empty-looking houses in our area which are really run down. In those cases I suspect somebody has bought a house or inherited one* and didn't have the capital to do it up but hung on to it in the hope that might change one day. Of course, what actually happens is that it gets more and more decrepit, no lender will risk advancing money against it and the owner just sticks his/her head in the sand and ignores it - maybe loses mental capacity to make any decisions about it, and nobody else can/will sort it out until the owner dies.

*I can't imagine anybody doing this in recent times when London property prices have been insane. I'm thinking more of people buying/inheriting decades ago.

It is very wrong that so many new flats are being built with no realistic prospect of being lived in. Maybe what's needed is a swingeing tax on owning more than one property unless it's rented out at a fair rent and kept in good order.

Jaxhog · 04/12/2018 15:51

Our local council has started doing exactly that (buying them).

It does seem crazy that perfectly good homes are unoccupied while people are without a roof over their heads.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 04/12/2018 15:52

Bats Empty houses are usually those that have been empty for long enough to no longer get the council tax rebate that most councils offer people having probate /other issues. So empty for a minimum of 6 months in most places.