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?

There are indeed plenty of properties available for migrants. In Manchester the Labour Council and its Mayor Andy Burnham are proud that they have welcomed thousands of migrants under the Government resettlement scheme which seeks to shove them all up north. Unfortunately the council didnt bother to ask the local populace if they were welcome and the strain on social housing in Manchester is such that people wait for years whilst migrants jump the queues based on need. Meanwhile our "own people" are homeless,sofa surfing,cant aafford to buy a home,,,but i digress..

Arnold you don't mean migrants, you mean asylum seekers. Migrants aren't eligible for social housing under most circumstances and certainly can't "queue jump" British people. Big stamp right there in their passports that says "no recourse to public funds". That's no benefits, no "free" social housing, no free nhs treatment. EU visas may be different, but still wouldn't be favoured for housing.

Asylum seekers have an "allowance" of £35 per week to leave on. God forbid you let them have a safe house as well as a meagre fucking pittance.

Also, "asking if they were welcome" and "our own people" - straight from the Nigel Farage Guide to Xenophobia

There's an empty house near me. The owner had a hellish tenant who literally wrecked the place.

It has been empty for months and has been vacant for so long because the whole house has had to be totally gutted and completely redone. Kitchen, bathroom, doors and ceilings replaced, the lot.

PS I'm British and I can't afford to buy a house, but I save my anger for whichever government(s) fuck the system up, not brown people who make arnold a bit nervous. I save my anger for the Persimmon homes boss who took home a £110 MILLION bonus, when his company donated only £1 million to charity. I save my anger for property developers and house builders who sell 3 bedroom homes with 2 small bedrooms for £410,000. For the property market which means the house I live in was forst sold in 1998 for £95,000 and is now on the market for £300,000. Luckily (ha) I'm renting, so the huge monthly payout goes nowhere in my benefit. That's not any Syrian/Iraqi/anywhere refugees fault is it

But well done for falling for the distraction.

as good as new 4 years on

A new house? I should bloomin' well hope so. But... What will it be like in 44 years time? Or 144?

Yes indeed, the asylum seeker/economic migrant is somewhat polarised and is not for this thread. Moving swiftly on..

I can understand the frustration when local people are being pushed down the queue, I really can and it's not right. However, there's enough stock that a competent government could house both groups and the fact that it's not happening is neither groups fault. It's very frustrating.

Holiday homes should be banned in a country that hasn't got enough housing stock!

I agree if it's a holiday home only used for a few weeks a year by the owners, but if there was nowhere for visitors to stay, areas that depend on tourism for jobs would be really hard hit.

A few years ago, I got chatting to some local people in a village in Cornwall. They had grown up in the village, but had to move to the nearest town to get somewhere they could afford to live. They pointed out house after house along the harbourside that were owned by people who only used them for a very few weeks a year, and that stood empty the rest of the time.

Then they told me the RNLI were thinking of buying some houses to rent out to lifeboat volunteers, because they were struggling to find people who live near enough to crew the lifeboat in the event of an emergency. That shocked me, that to keep the service going they might have to spend money that should be buying boats and stuff on houses for lifeboat crew.

Owner lives with his girlfriend, won’t sell because if he receives a cash lump sum they’ll stop his benefits.

With a few exceptions, the value of a property you own but don't live in counts as capital and he should be losing his benefits anway!

Yeah. Immigrant here...
Stealing your jobs, while being too lazy to work 😂
Please, certain poster, check your numbers and stop giving people incomplete ones.

It's truth though. Most non EU have no access to public funds including housing. Refugees are a completely different situation. EU have an access after certain time working in the UK. Not free obviously and pretty hard to get something with habitual tests, from what I heard.

However, NONE of this is actually related to EMPTY properties.

I think the system needs to change somewhat.
Has anyone thought about contacting their local newspapers about the empty estates some of you mentioned? It usually forces council's hand a bit.

We moved out of our private rented flat in march. Left in good condition, painted and cleaned carpet so not any work to do and its still empty. Not even on the market!
Prior to us moving in there it had been left off the market and empty for 11 months too.

I own one.
We had to move counties rather suddenly to care for mil who had dementia. Didn't have time to rent it out or sell and currently trying to do renovations at weekends while we decide if renting or selling will begin the best option for our future.
I'm very sad that it's empty, but it's not in a rentable or sellable state right now sadly as we bought it as a fixer upper but didn't get chance to sort everything before mil needed us- she hadn't been diagnosed when we bought...

I'm pretty sure councils do have the power to take over empty properties and rent them out. They remain the property of the owner and the rent (minus expenses) is kept for them to claim. I'll try and find the right legislation and link to it.

I think it's called an Empty Dwelling Management Order brought in by the Housing Act 2004.

A family member of DP's is planning to move overseas next year. However, they will be buying a house in the Londond commuter belt where they currently live ... so that they can "come home" for Christmas every year.

I suggested that they buy a place, rent it out and use the rental income to (more than) cover the cost of a short-term rental when they come "home" for Christmas, but "It wouldn't feel like Christmas unless we were in our own house".

So they'll be leaving it empty for the best part of 50 weeks of the year. Tossers. Actually, tax-dodging, Brexit-voting, Tory tossers.

Then there was DP's SIL whose father went into a nursing home but was wealthy enough to fund the fees from his income. She had POA, but left his house empty for 3-4 years until he died, because prices were rising and her eventual inheritance was getting bigger for every week it was left empty.

She's a tosser, too. Not a tax-dodger though, she's a benefit cheat!

40% of housing around here is used for holidays - and stay empty most of the year. Of the rest most of it is for rentals.

I live (very) rurally.

No one local can afford to buy here and the communities are literally dying. People visit and complain that there are no banks/other facilities, a place which was bustling ten years ago is now a ghost town (there's a pharmacy open twice a week and a small local shop open 9-5 everything else has closed down, there's no GP for miles as that closed as well) it happened since the banks closed and that place was a big tourist draw for the county, now all people do is complain about it being drab and run down. Housing costs? They start at £150,000, (for a house) sound good? There's nowhere to work within an hours drive in any direction and where there is to work it's mostly minimum wage. No one could afford to run a small business there (business taxes very high) and two hour round trip to bank on top. I know someone who got a council house there and she was overjoyed as she lived there as a child and loved it, but she hates it now as its dead, most of the properties are empty most of the year and she isn't allowed to drive.

The council decided to charge extra for second homes which stood empty most of the year to stop it but there was such a massive fuss they dropped the idea. There's a huge number of people leaving the area and our MP goes on about it but has zero idea as to the reasons why - property prices and even rents far to high for the minimum wage zero hour jobs that are here - it's not true landlords drop rents because people can't afford them, they just let people live there temporarily who are emergency council tenants topped up by DHP and evict.

Sorry, they're left empty the rest of the time the emergency tenants aren't in them. I was offered one. Rent was more than double housing benefit and I needed to rent the White goods for £20 a week. It's only used for emergency accommodation.

It must be very depressing to witness all that Becca 😕
those people buying up second holiday homes were actually sounding the death knell for the community and setting in motion the events which will lead to the devaluation of their investments....

What do you think will happen?

Honestly I expect tourism to die out and it'll be a dead zone eventually - that place I mentioned is desperately trying to get back on their feet but they can't. Whilst yes some people like to go places without mobile signal or mainstream shops or medical care others don't. It'll only get worse.

Our MP thinks that it's due to children leaving when they leave school, and it's true most do leave (a huge number) but what chance do they have living somewhere that's dying? Fact is they don't and them going into schools telling students to stay is a total waste of time. What jobs there are don't earn enough to buy homes or even rent in some places.

Aside from those buying holiday homes pushing up prices (and those for rental) the problem is companies closing branches saying things like too many people are online these days and it's utter crap. The branches are small and when compared to others didn't make enough, but if that place I mentioned had kept theirs even open only twice a week it wouldn't have died as it has. Likewise a GP surgery.

There are several empty houses near me.

Two changed ownership earlier in the year and are being refurbished. Another one belongs to my MIL, who is now in a care home. She's sure she'll be going home soon - but she won't. Ever (physical impossibility). DH is slowly clearing it, which is going to take a lot of time, then he will sell it for her (he has POA), possibly after a refurb, as it's very dated and then some.

I'm more bothered about the number of elderly people in their 60s/70s/80s living as 2 people or even just 1 person in houses intended for families, ie with 3 or 4 bedrooms and a garden (PIL were in this category!). We are in a house like that and plan to move as soon as we retire and don't have to commute in 2 different directions.

Our MP thinks that it's due to children leaving when they leave school
surely he is aware of the deeper causes but just cant admit them because they dont line up with the political agenda??

(or am I giving him way too much credit :o)

word yeh too much credit. Definitely!!!

I'm more bothered about the number of elderly people in their 60s/70s/80s living as 2 people or even just 1 person in houses intended for families

I know what you mean. Due to house price rises (even here in a relatively cheap part of the UK) most of the family sized houses here are occupied by people in their 60s+ living as a couple or alone. My PIL have a 6 bedroom house and it's just them there! Whilst most younger families feel lucky if they can get a mortgage on a 2 bedroom flat (and relatively well off young couples tend to buy cramped new builds which are very expensive & cramped compared to the older housing stock).

I don't know what the solution to this is though as people don't want to leave a house they've lived in for years & years, and want space for their kids to come back and visit.

My parents stayed in their 4 bed house until they died but why not? It was the only house they ever owned (in NE England) and they worked hard to buy it. I dont' think we need to decide people can have a certain amount of space only in the UK whether based on numbers of people locally in that area of the UK, rural Northumberland being different from Newcastle etc.
The staet has chosen to make it hard for older people to move if they want. I would have to pay the cost of a small house to the Government if I chose to swap this family house for a similar priced London penthouse when I get old so why would I ever sell? Stamp duty is very very high indeed. I was very cross about paying 1% stamp duty in the 80sand 90s. Iut was excessive I thought (scaning my diaries recently) and now it is 12% or 15% at the upper tier in England on houses that are priced at much higher levels too. No wonder people don't move.

There’s an area of London called Hampstead garden suburb and it contains lots of really expensive houses some of which are empty as owned by rich people who live overseas.