the other issue - residential

RESIDENTIAL

PAGE 1RESIDENTIALTHE OTHER ISSUE

ISSUE 1/3

RESIDENTIALTHE OTHER ISSUE

The Other Issue is a series of three publica-

tions raising awareness about vacant properties

and the impact which they have on the commu-

nity. The controversial issue affects everyone,

from those on the Council Waiting Lists, to oth-

ers who live attached to one of these vacant

properties. This issue will raise these topics in

the local area, as well as nationwide, to give an

overal awareness of the issue.


The startling picture of neglect – we estimate that more than 450,000 properties

have been empty for at least six months – at a time when there is an acute hous-

ing shortage. These figures were pieced together using information gathered

from local councils under the Freedom of Information Act.

Our findings suggest the number of “long term vacant” properties is 25% higher

than previously thought. David Ireland, chief executive of independent charity the

Empty Homes Agency said the empty stock would go some way towards tackling

the housing crisis – 1.8 million households are waiting for a council house – as

opposed to the government’s focus on building new homes to tackle the prob-

lem. “Refurbishing empty homes cannot deal with the entire housing crisis but it

can make an important contribution,” he said.

A lack of reliable information has hampered the efforts of campaigners trying

to draw attention to the problem and research, gleaned from 284 councils, is the

first time data from across Britain has been pulled together. Highlighting the scale

of the problem, the figure provided by one London borough was nearly 30 times

higher than that used in official figures.Ireland said the reservoir of property could

be vital given the dent in the government’s pledge to build 3m new homes made

by the credit crunch and attendant property crash. “It is yet further evidence of

the need for government to revisit a housing policy which is based almost entirely

on building new houses,” he said of the Guardian’s research.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics), however, argues that the

financial treatment of empty homes would have to change to make councils

grasp the nettle. “For every empty home that is brought back into use the council

sees a reduction in its annual central government grant,” James Rowlands, policy

project manager at Rics explained. “Many councils prefer the security of a guar-

anteed government grant rather than the less reliable income from the council tax

on a refurbished property.”

Ireland said the number of empty homes may be inflated if second homes have

not been properly accounted or underestimated if regeneration projects which

have been put on hold during the recession are excluded.

A number of big inner city regeneration projects resulted in large numbers of

homes becoming empty, because residents have been moved out. However,

those properties are often excluded from empty homes data. So too are some

private sector apartment developments which have been purposely left uncom-

pleted to avoid incurring council tax. Rowlands agreed that data on empty homes

is imperfect – many councils, rely on complaints to identify empty homes. “There

is no doubt that empty homes are a blight on local communities. They attract

social disorder and have a very negative impact on the neighbourhood.”

OVER A MILLION HOUSES ARE

LYING EMPTY...


1.8MILLION HOUSEHOLDS ARE WAITING FOR A COUNCIL HOUSE


25% OF FAMILIES ON WAITING LISTS COULD BE HOUSED BY VACANT PROPERTIES


RICs want to see VAT on home improvements reduced to 5% to make refurbish-

ment of derelict properties more affordable. But Rowlands believes there also has

to be a renewed effort to improve the regime to encourage owners to renovate

their empty properties.

“The government introduced new rules which were intended to make it easier

for local authorities to bring empty homes back into ownership but there are now

doubts about the effectiveness of empty dwellings management orders and I

think we need a new approach which improves the dialogue between councils

and owners and encourages them to work together to address this issue,” Row-

lands said. The TUC wants to see a tough approach in a bid to help those waiting

for homes – it has argued for severe financial penalties to be imposed on owners

of empty properties, such as council tax bills at five times the standard rate.

As part of its research the Guardian attempted to identify how many empty

properties are owned by people or companies based overseas – but, only 179

councils could provide figures, or even estimates, for overseas owners of empty

properties. The Guardian estimates that more than 11,000 empty properties are

owned by people living abroad. However, that estimate is less reliable as fewer

than half of councils were able to provide data.

Some councils are already grappling with the problem of empty houses. In Bir-

mingham – the council with the biggest number of empty homes, at 9,000 – the

council launched an empty property strategy in 2007, and vacancy rates are now

down by 5,000 on their 2003 levels.

Councillor John Lines, Birmingham’s cabinet member for housing said: “It’s

crucial in today’s economic climate to bring much needed homes back into use

for occupation by families who really need them and this is a priority for us.”

The Guardian’s research shows, as

might be expected, that empty homes

are at their highest in urban areas, where

population density is greatest. Birming-

ham, for instance, has 1 million citizens

and is the biggest council by population

in Britain.

David Ireland at the Empty Homes

Agency, said inner city brownfield sites,

as well as vacant houses, offer potential

for more homes: “Research conducted

in two London boroughs, which exam-

ined the housing potential on underuti-

lised brownfield areas concluded that

there was sufficient land to build 26,000

new homes in each borough.”

He is keen to see a new government

housing policy which considers a wider

range of initiatives including brownfield sites and empty homes as well as new

houses. “My concern is that because it is difficult to quantify the number of empty

homes and it is difficult for councils to encourage owners to refurbish them, the

issue will become swamped by the imperative to build new homes which is actu-

ally a more attractive financial proposition for local authorities,” he said.

Housing charity Shelter Scotland has secured Scottish government support for

the appointment of an empty homes champion who will promote the use empty

homes as a way of increasing housing supply and improving neighbourhoods.

“ALMOST HALF A MILLION

HOMES ARE LYING EMPTY IN THE

UK – ENOUGH TO PUT A ROOF

OVER THE HEADS OF A QUARTER

OF THE FAMILIES ON COUNCIL

HOUSE WAITING LISTS”.


“MY CONCERN IS THAT BECAUSE

IT IS DIFFICULT TO QUANTIFY THE

NUMBER OF EMPTY HOMES AND

IT IS DIFFICULT FOR COUNCILS TO

ENCOURAGE OWNERS TO REFURBISH

THEM THAT THE ISSUE WILL BECOME

SWAMPED BY THE IMPERATIVE

TO BUILD NEW HOMES WHICH IS

ACTUALLY A MORE ATTRACTIVE

FINANCIAL PROPOSITION FOR

LOCAL AUTHORITIES,”David Ireland (Empty Homes Agency)


7,610HOUSEHOLDS IN NORTHAMPTON ARE ON COUNCIL AND HOUSING ASSOCIATION WAITING LISTS


450,0

00HO

MES

IN E

NGLA

ND A

RE

ESTI

MAT

ED T

O HA

VE L

AIN

EMPT

Y

FOR

MOR

E TH

AN S

IX M

ONTH

S


In total, well over 930,00 properties are thought to be uninhabited, and while

they slowly deteriorate and cause problems for those around them, an estimated

4.5 million people wait for social housing. John has been living next to an empty

home for years. “It has become derelict, attracts criminals, has broken windows

and has damaged my walls,” he says.

Tracy walks past a whole block in east London that has been empty since it was

built at the height of the housing boom. “The block backs on to the Lee Naviga-

tion and has views directly over the Olympic Stadium, but sadly no one is getting

to enjoy the view,” she says.

These are some of an estimated 450,000 homes in England that have lain

empty for more than six months and among scores of stories we heard about

disused properties in your neighbourhoods. The government’s housing strategy,

released last month, included £100m to try to bring some of these properties

back into use and a consultation on allowing local councils to charge an “empty

homes premium” when a property has been out of use for longer than two years.

The strategy said “a neglected home can quickly start to cause problems for

neighbours, depressing the value of adjacent properties and attracting nuisance,

squatting and criminal activity”.

According to homelessness charity Shelter, even bringing all of them back into

use would not be enough to solve the UK’s housing crisis – but it is clear it would

improve the lives of those living nearby.

The Local Government Association is keen on plans to allow its members to

use council tax as a way to bring properties back into use, but is less happy about

the government’s plans to restrict use of one of the other levers – empty dwelling

management orders. It says the use of these powers, which have allowed them

to act against property owners who refuse to cooperate, “should be a matter of

legitimate local political choice and the proposals restrict this”.

David Ireland, chief executive of the charity Empty Homes, is positive about the

moves outlined in the strategy, but says there are reasons why homes fall into

disuse that are hard to address. “Whatever is happening in the market, nationally

or locally, you always get a core of properties that are fairly immune to financial

levers – people could have done something but just haven’t yet,” he says. “A lot of

things then get stacked on top of that – a lack of availability of credit for example.”

Ireland’s comments have been borne out by our research: when we started

looking at how the properties you told us about had become empty, the eco-

nomic recession, stalled council regeneration projects, tighter lending criteria

and death were just some of the reasons we unearthed.

EMPTY HOMES FALL APART WHILE

THOUSANDS HAVE NOWHERE TO LIVE


“WHEN I MOVED IN, THE EMPTY

PROPERTY DIDN’T LOOK THAT BAD,

THERE WAS A BIT OF FLY-TIPPING

IN THE BACK GARDEN BUT THAT

WAS IT. SINCE THEN, THE GARDEN

(BOTH FRONT AND BACK) HAS

TURNED INTO A RAMPANT FOREST

OF BRAMBLES, [THE OWNER]

HAS ALSO LEFT THE UPSTAIRS

WINDOWS WIDE OPEN, WHICH HAS

LED TO NUMEROUS PROBLEMS IN

MY HOUSE, SUCH AS MOULD ON MY

WALLS. THIS WAS PARTICULARLY

BAD DURING THE -10C AND SNOWY

WEATHER WE HAD LAST YEAR.”Eleanor, Oxfordshire


£36,702IS THE ANNUAL INCOME NEEDED IN NORTHAMPTON TO BUY AN AVERAGE HOME


IS THE VALUE PROPERTIES CLOSE TO AN ABANDONED HOUSE CAN BE LOWERED IN COMPARISION TO EQUIVALENT PROPERTIES FURTHER AFIELD.18%


The Local Government Association is keen on plans to allow its members to

use council tax as a way to bring properties back into use, but is less happy about

the government’s plans to restrict use of one of the other levers – empty dwelling

management orders. It says the use of these powers, which have allowed them

to act against property owners who refuse to cooperate, “should be a matter of

legitimate local political choice and the proposals restrict this”.

David Ireland, chief executive of the charity Empty Homes, is positive about the

moves outlined in the strategy, but says there are reasons why homes fall into

disuse that are hard to address. “Whatever is happening in the market, nationally

or locally, you always get a core of properties that are fairly immune to financial

levers – people could have done something but just haven’t yet,” he says. “A lot of

things then get stacked on top of that – a lack of availability of credit for example.”

Ireland’s comments have been borne out by our research: when we started

looking at how the proper-

ties you told us about had

become empty, the eco-

nomic recession, stalled

council regeneration pro-

jects, tighter lending criteria

and death were just some of

the reasons we unearthed.

One reader told us about

a property owned by a rela-

tive. The home, in Yorkshire,

has fallen into disrepair

after years of neglect, and

family members are una-

ble to persuade her to do

anything about it. They are

nervous about inheriting an

empty property, and would

welcome a compulsory pur-

chase order by the council.

Another reader told us

about a property in Cardiff that has been empty since spring, when she and her

husband were given it by an ageing relative.

There are 10 other homes for sale on the road, so they decided letting it would

be the best option, but to bring it up to lettable standards they need to borrow

money and, despite them both having steady jobs, they struggled to find a mort-

gage lender willing to take them on.

We also heard about cases where developers and councils had run out of the

money needed to get properties completed or refurbished, and homes were lying

empty as a result.

“A NEGLECTED HOME CAN QUICKLY

START TO CAUSE PROBLEMS FOR

NEIGHBOURS, DEPRESSING THE VALUE

OF ADJACENT PROPERTIES AND

ATTRACTING NUISANCE, SQUATTING

AND CRIMINAL ACTIVITY”Government Housing Strategy


SUIT

ABLE

FLA

TS A

RE

ESTI

MAT

ED T

O BE

LYIN

G EM

PTY

100,0

00PAGE 22RESIDENTIALTHE OTHER ISSUE

Financial institutions are looking like poor estate managers by letting flats go

empty over shops and other town centre businesses, says the Royal Institution

of Chartered Surveyors. The RICS calculates that more than 80,000 people now

homeless or living in unsuitable accommodations could be housed if just 80 of

these institutions changed their policy. Some owners of town centre properties

are now seeing the sense in letting previously vacant flats, gaining rent and secu-

rity as a result. Boots is renting out flats on the market, and Norwich

Union has assisted RICS in a new scheme. Last month a single-parent

family moved from a hostel into a flat over a shop as tenants of the Hous-

ing Association. The cost of refurbishing the property were met by the

association with a grant from the local council. Property owner Nor-

wich Union and leaseholder QS Familywear co-operated in enabling

the project. RICS says many more empty flats could be let if the owners

co- operated; the retailers themselves are often prevented by the terms

of their leases from sub-letting.

SURVEYORS PRESS OWNERS TO FILL FLATS

ABOVE SHOPS


As part of the Spare Space? campaign, RICS representatives are visiting finan-

cial institutions that own an estimated 80 per cent of the properties deemed

sutiable for occupancy. The campaign chairman, Michael Newey, said the effort

may be extended to encouraging shareholders to put pressure on companies to

change policy.

“At an estimate, there are 100,000 suitable flats lying empty,” Mr Newey said,

adding that the Government had put the figure in London alone at 93,000.

“80% of these are owned by 80 organisations, and the decisions of these 80

probably have more effect than the policies of local authorities. The prohibition

in leases of anyone living or eating on the premises is writing off large numbers

of properties.”

Both RICS and the Institute of Housing have called for 100,000 new proper-

ties a year to be built to deal with the housing shortage. Mr Newey suggested

that a policy review by property owners could therefore save large amounts of

green belt land from development. “It is a matter of releasing the land’s hidden

resources,” he said. The advent of assured short- hold tenancies, which do not

provide security of tenure, should have encouraged property owners to review

practice on leases,” he added.

The RICS initiative has attracted criticism, however, from the Living Over The

Shop scheme funded by the Department of Environment and the Housing Corpo-

ration. Ann Petherick, director of LOTS, said: “They have duplicated what I have

already done. It is unfortunate RICS got involved. There are structural reasons

for the problems, and the institutions have no control over what happens once a

property is leased. They can’t take the initiative. The wording of leases can only

be changed once owners see the successes - not by people telling them to do it.”


Fewer than 1,000 new houses a year were built in Northampton over the past

decade, new figures have revealed. Documents published by the West North-

amptonshire Joint Planning Unit (JPU) showed that between 2001 and 2011, only

16,356 new homes were built across Northampton, Daventry and Towcester, with

only 9,339 of those in the county town.

The figures reflected the massive downturn in the housing market since the

global economic crisis hit in 2006 and officials from the JPU said the west of

Northamptonshire will have to build thousands more houses over the coming

decade to keep up with the area’s housing needs.

The chairman of the JPU, South Northamptonshire Council leader, Councillor

Mary Clarke (Con, Old Stratford) said: “All our research shows that west North-

amptonshire needs around 50,000 new homes to be built

between 2001 and 2026 in order to meet local needs.

“To date we’ve seen over 16,300 new houses built, which

leaves nearly 33,800 still to be built.

“Sites for nearly 19,500 houses already have planning

permission, leaving a further 14,300 to be identified.”

When the JPU last published housing expansion plans

for the area in January 2011, they showed how seven large

housing estates could be built around the edge of North-

ampton, on sites including Buckton Fields, near Whitehills,

Dallington Heath, near Kings Heath, and near Collingtree.

The proposals were met with immediate opposition from

anti-expansion campaigners, who warned the new devel-

opments would become ‘the Grange Parks of the future’.

But others welcomed the fact the proposed number of

new houses to be built had dropped from 62,125 in 2009 to 50,150.

The JPU’s latest documents did not identify specific sites where new houses

could go. Instead, they showed the results of an investigation of 886 potential

development sites across the area. Of the sites, 103 were considered deliverable

within five years, 204 had ‘constraints which could be overcome’ and the rest

were rejected.

Councillor Clarke said: “The new report seeks to provide greater clarity to land-

owners, developers and local communities. The identification of a site does not

necessarily mean that development will occur. It shows what land is technically

available, and it will be up to councillors to determine which sites are brought

forward for development.”

FEWER THAN 10,000 NEW HOMES HAVE BEEN BUILT IN NORTHAMPTON

SINCE 2001

AT THIS RATE IT WILL

TAKE 6.74 YEARS TO

CLEAR THE COUNCIL

HOUSE WAITING LISTShelter local housing watch


THE BUILDING IS IN THE PROCESS

OF BEING MOTHBALLED, STAGE ONE

OF WHICH INVOLVES CONCRETE

BLOCKS BEING POSITIONED ROUND

IT TO STOP LOOTERS SMASH-AND-

GRABBING THE VALUABLE COPPER

CABLING AND PIPEWORK INSIDE.

CCTV IS BEING FITTED AND A

SECURITY PATROL EMPLOYED TO

KEEP AN EYE ON IT. THE TOTAL

COST? AN EYE-WATERING £100,000

A YEAR. “THIS IS THE LUCKY ONE,”

THE OWNER OF THE BUILDING TOLD

ME “I’M DEMOLISHING THE OTHERS.”Owner of block of flats


David Ireland is an expert in property - but

better than that, he’s done what he talks about.

David shares with us his top tips on to how to

rescue a house and turn an unloved property

into the home of your dreams…

5 REASONS TO RESCUE AN EMPTY HOUSE

1

You can save a piece of this green and pleas-

ant land. There is a huge house building pro-

gramme planned in England, and much of it will

involve building on the countryside. Every home

that is created out of an empty property should

mean one less new one needs to be built.

2

You can create the home you want, not the

one somebody else wants to sell you. Sure

neglected homes need work, but they should be

priced accordingly. You can spend the money

you save on getting it exactly how you want it.


3

4

5

Less competition. Most neglected homes are

not on the market, and even those that are for

sale tend to get marketed less vigorously than

other houses. This puts you as the potential

buyer in the driving seat.

Pay less VAT. Out of every pound you spend

on renovating most houses 17 ½p goes to the

government. But it’s different for many empty

homes; you may only have to pay 5p in the

pound. Some empty properties are even exempt

from VAT altogether.

No property chain. One of the most awkward

aspects of moving house is relying on a whole

chain of buyers and sellers to coordinate their

transactions. The only way out of this is if you

buy a property with vacant possession, an

empty property in fact!


WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Many people in the UK need homes. There are 1.7 million families on housing

waiting lists, and the country’s population is growing. Yet house building rates are

at the lowest since the 1920s. Other than building more homes, reusing empty

homes provides one of the few other sources of housing. What’s more it can do

so at an affordable price. Surveys have shown that the average cost of renovating

an empty home is about £10,000. Reusing empty homes can also have environ-

mental benefits. Recent research found that renovation of an empty house cre-

ates about a third of the CO2 emissions of building a new house.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

If you own an empty property, know someone who does, or even know where

one is located then please share this information. Without it your help we cannot

make progress on changing vacant, deteriorating houses, back in homes that

people can make a life in. With so many people on the waiting lists there has

never beena more urgent need for affordable housing.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

For more information about The Other Issue then please visit out website:

WWW.THEOTHERISSUE.CO.UK

The Big Issue Foundation is a national

charity which connects vendors with

the vital support and solutions that

enable them to rebuild their lives and

journey away from homelessness.

The Royal Institute of British

Architects champions better buildings,

communities and the environment

through architecture and our members.

Shelter is a charity that works to

alleviate the distress caused by

homelessness and bad housing.
