AIBU to ask why people hang on to derelict properties?

[saxifrage]

So we're in the middle of a housing crisis.

Am I being unreasonable to ask why people hold on to derelict properties for decades?

The ones I'm thinking of are typically residential properties dating from the Victorian/Georgian periods. Some are listed, some aren't.

They are modest, 3-4 bed terraced homes, often with big gardens, in prime town centre locations. Expensive to do up, but bags of potential.

Because most of them are listed, knocking them down and selling them as a brownfield site is out. Ditto redeveloping for multiple occupancy (planning authority has explicitly ruled this out).

However, there have been several successful renovations of similar in my area. If on the market, the houses I'm thinking of would certainly sell.

Has anyone done this or heard 'from the horse's mouth' why people don't just sell them?

If they are owned outright and people have long since lost the deeds they are very hard to sell
May belong to someone who’s died and no one inherited them
Major structural issues rendering them impossible to sell

I work in this area. You'd be amazed, absolutely amazed by the amount of people who own sizeable assets but have no interest whatsoever in realising them. Even when the house falls to bits and brings down the whole street, they ignore letters and refuse to engage.

Some people simply cannot 'deal' with ordinary life as most of us would see it.

Sometimes it's to piss off the neighbours. If you live miles away from your derelict house it doesn't affect you personally if it's a magnet for squatters and looks dilapidated. It's a good way of annoying the people who live nearby without technically doing anything wrong.

Other times, people just aren't interested in it. As hard as it is to believe it, some people have so many properties and are so wealthy it is easy for them to forget about the one they have the other side of the country in a place they don't intend to ever visit. Or maybe they intend to do it up, but never get round to it. (A bit like Sid down the road, the guy who likes to work on cars in his spare time but never seems to get around to the rust bucket on bricks at the far end of his garden.)

I think for quite a few I've seen, the listed status makes repairs difficult and expensive, so owners cynically hang on until they are dangerous so they can demolish and get a better price.

I suspect they have often been inherited by someone who doesn't have the time, capacity or money to do them up but indecision and procrastination stops them selling (especially if there are potential legal or structural problems to overcome as @lastqueenofscotland has pointed out)

Thanks for your reply. Surely there must be a way around the deeds issue though? It seems bizarre that you would be left unable to dispose of your own property.

Some of them have recent planning applications against them (last ten or fifteen years), which were knocked back (e.g. to split the house into flats). So it does seem like there's an owner on the scene somewhere, but otherwise the houses are left to go to rack and ruin.

I guess for some people the coats of getting rid are too high - easier to let it rot than go through the costs of selling. For others, maybe out of sight out of mind? My mum had a neighbour who went into care and her family were all hundreds of miles away - I don’t think they realised how bad it got until after she died. It really was close to being a ruin - a tree had grown through the flat roof of the kitchen, all gutters down, and the main roof leaking. Moving a house like that on is a major exercise -not many people want to buy them.

I was wondering this yesterday. We were walking in an area where there has been huge house building, not a corner of land left untouched and yet there are two large detached houses left empty for years.

I know sometimes builders have landbanks waiting for funding or timing to come right to build them out, but I don't think that's what the derelict properties are about.

I do know someone who bought a row of empty terraces "up north" years ago thinking they were so cheap he couldn't fail to make money. He did them up but he went bust without selling any of them. He couldn't even sell them at a loss. So there are some properties that just don't sell - we're in need of housing but not in all areas, but again that wasn't the case where I was yesterday.

The big developers much prefer a nice green field to a derelict property to fix but I'd have thought in most areas there's always someone who will take on a doer upper at the right price and any price has to be better for the owner than leaving it to disintegrate.

That said, there is a listed building in my town that has been derelict for years. The listing meant so little could be done to it, that it wasn't viable for anyone to take on. It has now been converted to flats because it became such an eyesore people would have agreed to anything, but previously planning applications had been declined because of lack of parking.

I wonder if sometimes the owner has died and/or can't be found?.

Because the owner is hoping to raise the money for renovations. Because they are stuck in probate.

Honestly the only reason I could see these particular properties failing to sell in this market would be if they had major structural issues, as lastqueenofscotland said.

There is very little stock and even completely derelict housing is selling fast if it's in a good area.

The margins available wouldn't attract developers/flippers but the regs around listed buildings haven't stopped several people locally from making them into beautiful family homes.

I'm sure the renovation costs were huge but the prices they fetch once finished are also astronomical because they're very attractive buildings and the location is so good.

If it was me, I would prefer to sell it 'as seen' just to get it off the books. Totally understand not having the money/inclination to do it up yourself but there really is a market for these properties.

Is it really a thing that people wouldn't get out of bed for the £50-100k+ they might get for it as a site?

The ones around here they keep applying to knock down and build flats on. The council keep declining.

So they let them rot. Eventually they will be condemned and pulled down, due to being unsafe, or there will be a mysterious fire.

Owner wins, as they can now do more with the land. Council will probably still decline the big blocks of flats, though, so not really sure why the effort. But it's a massive shame. The houses should be pulled back off these people.

@saxifrage

Honestly the only reason I could see these particular properties failing to sell in this market would be if they had major structural issues, as lastqueenofscotland said.

There is very little stock and even completely derelict housing is selling fast if it's in a good area.

The margins available wouldn't attract developers/flippers but the regs around listed buildings haven't stopped several people locally from making them into beautiful family homes.

I'm sure the renovation costs were huge but the prices they fetch once finished are also astronomical because they're very attractive buildings and the location is so good.

If it was me, I would prefer to sell it 'as seen' just to get it off the books. Totally understand not having the money/inclination to do it up yourself but there really is a market for these properties.

Is it really a thing that people wouldn't get out of bed for the £50-100k+ they might get for it as a site?

Doing a Victorian reno myself, and there definitely could be cases where the poor state of the building will cost so much to repair you'll never make a profit.

We got lucky. Ours has a roof and no asbestos. That's about all you can say for it though. Everything else has to be sorted, replaced, repaired and restored. It's going to be slow going.

@luxolente that's exactly what's happening with a lot of these properties - they will never get permission to convert them into flats or knock them and sell as development land.

Even if they were pulled down in the future, it's extremely unlikely that they would ever get 'get rich quick' planning permission for a block of flats or whatever, and the sites aren't big enough anyway.

So frustrating to see it get worse every year.

I agree that it's a massive waste and these derelict houses are in prime locations and there would be no shortage of people wanting to renovate and live there but I'm not sure what the solution is unless local authorities could force a compulsory purchase if the house was allowed to sit empty for beyond a certain number of years

We looked at one a gorgeous Art Deco building but the landowner although it was up for sale didn't really wanted to sell it
The value of it as a house with architectural merit, which as such would attract restrictions from planning was never going to realise what he wanted for it. The asking price was ridiculous
He kept it on the market for years and let it rot until he could claim it was unsafe and it could be demolished without any problems and planning would allow a new building in its place - he sold the land for the ridiculous price and they built flats instead.
Planning wouldn't have let him demolish and build it until it was the only viable solution.
It was very sad. We would have been happy to have put the money and effort in it required to restore it but the asking price put it out of reach for restoration. The area lost a landmark building we bought and restored a victorian villa instead.

A local lass hung onto her family home until it was declared unsafe. It was the emotional attachment which meant she couldn’t let go. This was despite not having the funds to maintain it, and really needing the money that would come from its sale. Sadly, she was eventually forced to sell to a developer as it was so unsafe, and she couldn’t even afford security fencing to stop trespassing.

So - emotional attachment is a reason.

A large house near me was unoccupied and becoming derelict because the owner died and the relative he left it to lived overseas and could never be traced.
Not a listed building.
Such was the deterioration that a few years later the Council made a compulsory purchase and put it up for sale.
The new owner made it lovely again and split it into flats.

I understand some people can't be bothered or other reasons.

I would love to have one to fix up.

My sense is that the council doesn't like to use its CPO powers too often as a) it doesn't want to have expensive (semi)derelict properties on the books and b) it's expensive and time consuming to compulsorily purchase a property. They often meet with resistance even from owners who have no intention of maintaining the property.

Another i know of was left to a man who had no interest in it at all. Kept it as he planned to sell it one day and make a profit - a day which never came.
One of a semi it became derelict and the neighbours were being troubled by an increasing number of rats.
He was contacted by the council to improve things , did not bother so another Compulsory ourchase and is now restored by the new owner.

I like the sound of your council @Pavlova31!

purchase not ourchase ...

We have a four bed detached on our estate (built in the 90s), that has been empty nearly 5 years now. I have absolutely no idea why. Its awful when we have a housing shortage in this Country.

Yes it is good that they take this sort of thing seriously.

I agree Missy B1.