To ask who the hell owns all the..

[OftenHangry]

... 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?

Yet people in the UK keep voting the Tories in: nothing is going to change in terms of the housing market unless there is a change of government.

If the ratio of homeowners to renters falls, then eventually we'll see politicians promoting renter-attractive policies. Much stricter laws around renting out homes ... you know where people live.

Sometimes there are legal difficulties. There was a family home left empty for years near a friend of mine, after the owner died. It's a fairly expensive area, too. Turned out that the builder (in the 1930s) had 'given' it to his brother without the title ever having been recorded on the Land Reg, so there was no official owner.

It was sorted out eventually, I forget how, but not until after the garden had turned into a jungle and the house was very badly neglected.

A very different thing from all the newbuild flats being bought up by Chinese etc. and left empty, simply because they see it as a safe place to park their money.

High time there was a crackdown on this, IMO.

Governments of all colours have been unbelievably lax on everything to do with housing.

Governments of all colours have been unbelievably lax on everything to do with housing.

Cui bono ?

there are 23 million homes in England, so 200,000 represents less than 1% on them, it looks let the current set-up is remarkably efficient!

My DF has dementia and moved into a care home several months ago. His house is empty because it is in dire need of a new bathroom and kitchen. Neither have been touched for over thirty years. He is on the deferred payment scheme having used up his savings on paying for his care to date. So house isn't in good enough condition to rent out. Tried to sell for cash buyers as it has a very short lease but though we had interest both times the sale fell through. It seems awful that it is empty given the housing crisis. I know you can give to the council to rent out. My issue with that is my DF is in end stage and I know that once he passes I will have three months to sell his house (because of deferred payment rule) which would affect any tenancy. Renting it out would be ideal as the extra money would go towards his care, but I am not in the position to pay the money needed to bring the house up to date. Hence, warm, cosy, but very shabby house with ancient kitchen and bathroom is empty.

I know that Islington Council (where Corbyn has been an MP since 1983 and has a lot of input into local politics) owns hundreds of derelict properties. A friend bought from them, which is how I know. When doing up the place, he found food in the kitchen cupboard dating from 20 years ago. According to the neighbours, the place had not been lived in for 20 years. It was sold to him £80K under the market rate and he did the place up to a high standard for £10K.

So do not hand over property to the local councils unless you know that they are well-run! Certainly, most London councils are not. The standard policy for Camden Council in the 80s was to pour concrete down toilets to stop empty properties form being squatted -- they preferred them to rot and fall into more and more disrepair. I don't think they are using concrete these days, but the policy of leaving properties standing empty rather than spending any money on repair is still there.

If in UK and there is an owner, they will be charged council tax for an empty property. Some councils already charge double council tax for empty properties. In the news recently, evidently the MOD has 11000 empty properties that the government is still paying for, even though they are empty. Also some properties remain empty due to being 100+ years old and no employment opportunities in the area

I live in Hertfordshire in a town popular with commuters. However there are large office blocks that have been built on the site of former housing , that have been empty since they were built nearly 20 years ago whilst there are properties that were formerly (large) houses that are now business premises, to me its completely inconprehensible.

has a very short lease

that's another issue.

Did anyone catch the R4 Moneybox earlier this year about new builds with leases where the ground rent doubles every year, and you can't decorate without paying a £1,000 fee to the leaseholder ?

There were 2 year old houses that were unsaleable.

If in UK and there is an owner, they will be charged council tax for an empty property.

If the owner can be found ...

Some properties stand empty because owners can’t sell and can’t afford tenants. Our current house was empty for a year before we moved in because it’s quite niche and they couldn’t find anyone who wanted to rent it (massive 5 bed Georgian appartment with no garden).

When someone dies intestate with no one to inheret under intestasy rules the property is supposed to go to the state.

If properties are on the market for a long time and don't sell. Some properties are then sold via property auction businesses. This is for properties where the owner is confirmed.

However there are large office blocks that have been built on the site of former housing , that have been empty since they were built nearly 20 years ago whilst there are properties that were formerly (large) houses that are now business premises, to me its completely incomprehensible.

When I was growing up, Harrow council did this. Loads of empty offices in the town centre, as they had aspirations delusions of becoming a corporate hub. Of course they all stood empty in order to avoid paying rates.

If you want an example of a simple small change that would cost the government no more than the ink and paper it was written on, it would be to require that rates are paid in full for any property - regardless of occupation or not. Especially commercial properties. If there's a tenant, they pay. If not the building owner - DTZ or whoever picks up the tab. Would act as an incentive to charge sensible rents for a start.

Obviously it'll never happen - to many snouts in troughs. But it's an example of the low-level changes that are simple and cheap that can actually have an effect.

Marissa , do you know how much it's going to cost to renew the lease or buy the freehold? Unless it's going to be ludicrously expensive, I'd have thought some cash buyer developer would buy it, as long as it's priced accordingly.

An aunt's house - clean and generally cared for but terribly dated - was empty for over a year after she had to move to a care home. We did look into doing it up to rent out, but it just wasn't worth the considerable cost - at least £30k some years ago to do it properly. We could have used her own funds but TBH it was just too much hassle to organise, given that none of us lived at all locally.

It did eventually sell, but for quite a lot less than the original asking price. The estate agent had overvalued it, and relatives who had P of A, were handling the sale and didn't know the area, had believed him about what it 'ought' to be worth.

Those saying new houses are shocking , you are being swayed by the media . I have a new built . It is beautifully made and is as good as new 4 years on . The kitchen was fitted with smeg appliances and is much nicer than friends knackered 80's houses . Some new builds are built badly but not all!

I was an empty house owner for a while because I was working overseas. It was rented out at times, but it is very rural and was quite hard to let.

Look up £1 houses. Whole empty streets have been transformed in some areas. I believe they were sold to local people, with a loan to help with the renovations.

There's one around the corner from me. Empty since I can remember, the local newspaper actually did an article and turns out it's owned by a man who lives in London, he has had at least 5 letters offering to buy it but turned them all down. House would be worth about £300k even in the state it's in. I mainly feel sorry for the neighbours. It's semi and I know they've complained many times about squatters, overgrown trees and rats in the roof.

Those saying new houses are shocking , you are being swayed by the media.

No. I've seen them.

But they aren't ALL badly built !

Apologies,,just read the front page....There is a wider argument over not only who owns empty properties but who owns or claims to own the land of this country.

Did you know for example that the ownership of vast swathes of land in this country is claimed by just a few individuals who largely inherited it by dubious and questionable means?

Did you also know that HM Land Registry connives with landowners to conceal their ownership? Essentially unless land is bought or sold, its ownership and transfer does not have to be legally recorded via HM land registry.

Meanwhile the vast majority of the population are coralled on a very small volume of the total land and are ripped off for daring to infest it via extortionate land and property values.

The British population lives in some of the crummiest,oldest and certainly smallest homes in the developed world.

And yet hose same people continue to buy into this corrupt system.

It is very true that massive developments are taking place funded mostly by foreign cash and the masterplan is to turn devalued flat currency into tangible assets via property. But it is not for the likes of you and me,,oh no.

No,,they are funding the build of blocks of flats which are bought up by devlopers/huge invest cos and property companies to rent out.

Individuals are often blocked out from buying them even if they want to as they are sold off plan.

Foreign cash is being used to turn the UK population into a nation of renters and no one is doing anything about it. We should be donning our gilet jeune and taking to the streets like the French !

The fat cats now know that people cant afford homes as they have rigged the system agains them so instead of fixing the system, they are plotting to incarcerate our children and grand children as lifetime future tenants .

Renewing the lease will cost 60k. Off the top of my head there is 45 years left on the lease - it is in the South East.

The estate agent told me that it could only go to a cash buyer as nobody would get a mortgage without a full term lease. An almost identical house in the road went for 275k but it was in great condition inside. Estate agent said the value (he reckons in current condition 250k minus the cost of a lease, minus a cash buyers incentive (🤨) we should get 170k so to be offered 145k by first buyer was depressing to say the least. Second cash buyer had financing issues. I have lost faith in the estate agent but how do you find a good one!

There is blocks of flats near where I live which have loads of empty properties. My oh used to own one, due to circumstance he had to surrender it to the bank who sold it at auction in London. Now I'm going to assume if you live in London the thought of being able to buy a 3 bed property for £15k, with a monthly mortgage and service charge totalling around £400pm in an area where housing benefit pays more than that for entitled families, seems like a no brainer as a money maker. Unfortunately the reputation of the area will always make them undesirable, resulting in lots of privately owned empty houses with no tenants.

Did you also know that HM Land Registry connives with landowners to conceal their ownership?

harsh accusation ... there are limits (set by parliament) as to what the LR can and can't do. Unless and/or until there's a law passed requiring all land to be registered (I think I've just written it. One sentence) then land not bought/sold simply never makes it in. Which is all land held "in trust" for the Duke of Handshandy, or wherever.

That said, we could always "go French" and force land to be divided amongst children when the owner dies. Apparently that's the origin of some double-barrelled vineyards, as owners of tiny parcels of land married owners of other tiny parcels of land to try to recreate their parents estate. Or so I heard on a R4 programme.

Trying to figure out leasehold values is the closest I have come to black magic. When we bought our bungalow, it had 59 years left on the lease. I tried to calculate the value to offer the leaseholder and hit a brick wall in the "rateable value" wasn't held anywhere - ending my fruitless search with Severn Trent Water (don't ask).

Yet mysteriously the freeholder could find some figures somewhere. Eventually I did some sums and it was cheaper to take their offer than fart around paying surveyors and getting into a LVT argument over it.