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?

There are several cases in our town like this. It's not just houses but also public buildings: a huge police station was left unoccupied for about 10 years dead opposite the council offices. Just down the road is a huge hospital that's been out of commission for closer to 30.

Yet, we got an expensive booklet a couple of years ago which explained the options the council were considering to meet housing targets, all of the options involved green belt development.

Developers are cannier than councils. A couple of very large pubs, the type with several bars, function rooms, garden and cat park have mysteriously caught fire and burned to the ground. Pubs are remarkably flammable it seems.

There's a big detached house and a petrol station both derelict and next door to each other near me. They've been left for 15+ years, owned by the same family

Must be worth a fair bit, in a nice village and large plots. Bit of an eyesore

There are three close to me, part of a small farm.

The owner is in her 90s and in a home. The land is rented to a neighbouring farm, leaving the farm houses empty. Without instruction from the owner, they will stay empty until they become part of probate, which could be another decade.

@essentialhealing the eyesore bit really bothers me, particularly when we're talking about town centre properties!

@Mintjulia farms are a tricky one - easy to rent/sell land but much harder to get the house(s) looked after. Several cases like this not too far from us.

Occasionally the house will sell without the land, which seems to be a disaster as most people don't understand what it's like to live beside/on a working farm. There are a few gorgeous 'big houses' in the countryside around us but the farmers don't want a listed building and people who want a listed building typically don't want a working farm (or for someone to be farming right beside their grand house).

Cue indecision and dereliction.

If only I had the money...

Councils do have the power to take over empty and/or derelict properties, but they are rarely used ime. I suspect that the process is complicated and costly, and these days councils probably don't have the staff, the money or the expertise.

I once worked at a London borough where they had an "empty properties officer" but that was in the late 1980s. I've never come across anyone having that role in any rural district and my efforts to get the council to bring a large house on the Surrey/London borders back into use were met with complete obstruction by the council officer who was (supposedly) responsible. He didn't want to know, and it was a massive house that could have made 6 or even 8 flats.

I think it's a bloody disgrace.

the listed status makes repairs difficult and expensive

I think this is probably the answer. People like the idea of doing up a property to sell it just to make beautiful but the costs are often £££ and sometimes more than the value it would add to the house.

I have a 5 bed 4 storey Victorian house (not listed). It's our family/forever home. It wasn't derelict as such but had been pretty much untouched for 20-30 years. We owned it for 3 months before moving in and aimed to get most of the work done in that window. Huge underestimation both in terms of time and finances. It's been more like renovate one phase, stop and save up/ have a break from workmen, then next phase. We have boarded lofts (3 lofts as house is on hill and odd layout), restored floorboards, restored sash windows, replumb, rewire, new gates, new patio doors x 2, strip and wax all internal doors, new bathrooms and downstairs toilet, new kitchen including knock-through and steel beams, new boiler, new gas fires, restored fireplaces, all rooms decorated, upstairs rooms all carpeted, driveway redone, exterior repointed, windows painted, chimneys refurbished, guttering redone. See how it adds up?

We've now been here more than 2 and a half years and it's still not finished, albeit the "house" is done and the current works are a new patio and external steps. Next will be reinstatement of garden walls and front railings. When that's done we will need to replace the lawn as it's totally trashed by builders materials, dust etc. The garden gates will need repainting as they've had a battering too.
Next year will be refurbishment of the front door (original Victorian door - refurb more expensive than buying a new pvc one!) and we'll be "finished" except there is always something that needs doing. I've already had to touch up multiple areas of paintwork internally.

As well as the cost there have been unforeseen issues holding things up. Covid, brexit (supplies), a burst pipe/flood in the basement etc.

We are both high earners without a mortgage and at times we run low on funds. It's only because we haven't had a holiday for 2 years that we have been able to get as far as we have.

Old houses are beautiful but a total money pit!!!

Not just old properties.
The estate I live on is 15 years old. We have lived here for almost 6. A house about 8 doors along has been empty all that times.
The neighbours take it in turns to mow the front lawn.
According to neighbourhood watch (Elaine) it was a family of doctors who lived there and just upped and left for their home country 10 years ago.
It’s quite surreal, all the furniture is in it still

I currently know of 2.

1 - on my road.
Brought as a holiday home - it was a wreck and is probably worse now.
They were here frequently at the beginning and did a lot of work on the garden, but came less a less and haven't been in over a year, and hadn't come much for the couple of years pre covid.

The house, as mentioned, is a wreck and has rats living it and a bee swarm settled in the chimney last summer.
It isn't an expensive house for the area post war prefab.
Weirdly they had a new roof put on 5 years ago.
Has a big garden which is now an utterly jungle and would need a mini-digger to clear it.
I've recently reported it to the council on their online empty property form. They are investigating and now have an address and are going to write to inform the owner that a complaint has been made. I can't imagine he will do anything though. Not sure what their next steps will be.

2 - the house a now deceased elderly relative used to live in. Large property but wasn't theirs and the ownership position is complicated, so it remains empty. It is probably worth around £1m.

Where I used to live in Berkshire there were several huge period houses falling to rack and ruin. Believed to be owned by people in the FE who just seem to have forgotten about them.

@MorrisZapp is there anything to be done? DB owns a very valuable and large house in London and unfortunately the next door house is in an absolutely appalling condition. It’s owned by the very odd son of an eccentric old man who died some years ago. He doesn’t live there but visits at weekends.

Luckily they aren’t attached but the house that is attached is beautiful and must be really devalued by this total eyesore.

Are there any actions that can be taken to force repairs or sale?

I think its most likely the listing that's the problem. Too many conditions as to how work must be done.

This happens a lot in London, believe it or not. Rich family from middle East buy it and seem to forget they have it, or perhaps ownership is via a trust and can't easily be released.
A house on my street is owned by a family from the UAE who spend summer in London to avoid the heat. They haven't been since before Covid but have gardeners and a caretaker keeping an eye on it. It's definitely not derelict but is unused.
You can usually tell which houses are which as they have metal bars on the windows when no other houses in the street do.

Sometimes it's because the owners have gone into homes and refuse to sell because they're convinced they'll be well enough to leave the home and go back to their home, one day!

We had one on our road. It was abandoned/derelict when we moved in 24 years ago. We were told by neighbours that it was an old woman who'd lived there all her life, but had gone into a home. She'd not done a power of attorney and there were no known family, so it was just left to rot.

It wasn't until she died and her will was enacted that the beneficiaries could sell it (a couple of charities). She'd been in the home around 30 years all told, so that was 30 years of deterioration/damage.

Local councils do have the power to take control of such houses and renovate/sell them, but they don't really seem bothered to make the effort. Presumably nothing in it for them as eventual sales proceeds would have to be paid over to the beneficiaries (less their costs of course).

There was a house in our next town that was literally falling down. It was owned by a guy with learning difficulties who'd inherited it from his parents (it was his family home). He couldn't cope, so didn't pay bills etc., and ended up with the council prosecuting him for unpaid council tax spanning many years (a decade or two!). They eventually forced him out and changed the locks, etc and the poor guy ended up living in the garage! Then the council couldn't sell it for legal reasons (not helped by a squatter in the garage). This was going on for years whilst the house fell further into disrepair. Then the council finally got legal ownership and sold it. There was still an issue with the squatter, I think he started living in a scrap car in the back garden. Then the council started charging the new owner for the unoccupied property council tax, and he saw red and removed the roof (which needed removing anyway), as apparently, there's no council tax due if the house doesn't have a roof (uninhabitable). It's been like that a few years now, obviously getting more and more run down as expected of a house without a roof!

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)
The owner wants to convert into flats and they basically just hang on to the house and keep reapplying every few years. They’re hoping the staff at the council have changed, or the planning laws have changed, and they’ll eventually get permission. There’s a place next to me where the owner reapplied for 25 years until he got permission to do what he wanted.

There can be various other reasons though. The owner may be in a care home. Or they may be living with a partner and retain their empty house so in the event of a death or breakup they have a home to return to. Or they’re rich and just aren’t bothered about one property. Or they’re waiting for the value to increase before they sell. Lots of reasons.

A house around the corner from me sat empty for several years after the owner died without a known heir. Whilst empty is was robbed of anything worth selling. Heating system, water tank, radiators all stripped out and then the local yob element got in with spray paint and broke the windows, doors and anything left there.
Eventually it was sold to a developer and has just sold.
I don’t know if they traced a distant heir or the estate went to the crown but at least the house can be someone’s home again.

Considering there are international rich people leaving multi-million pound houses to literally rot and grow moss and cave in in London. Yes there are people who wouldn't care about £100k.