Date published: 2006/06/28
The BBC says:
Property owners who leave their homes unoccupied for more than six months could from 6 July have them taken over by their local council to rent out for social housing.
The Empty Dwelling Management Order was introduced as part of the 2004 Housing Act.
Any council which wants to take over a property must go first to the Residential Property Tribunal Service for a ruling.
The tribunal will weigh up the interests of the owners and the benefit renting it out would bring, before coming to a decision.
Many properties will be exempt, for example those where someone has gone temporarily abroad or is in hospital; where it's a holiday home, or within six months of probate being granted where the home owner has died.
If none of these exemptions apply and the tribunal rules in favour of the council, it could take control of the property for seven years.
The owner would receive the rental minus the council's costs and benefit from any repairs when they retake control.
Siobhan McGrath, senior president for the Residential Property Tribunal Service explained the criteria for granting an order: "We have to be satisfied that the dwelling has been unoccupied for six months.
"The local authority has to give details of the efforts they've made to notify the relevant proprietor that they are considering making an EDMO."
Councils already have strong powers to deal with properties which represent a hazard through Compulsory Purchase Orders.
The Empty Dwelling Management Orders will target properties generally in a better condition.
Another difference is owners will have to justify what they intend to do with an empty property after a relatively short time.
Henry Stuart, head of property at the City law firm Withers, said these new powers represent a significant change in the law: "It introduces the concept that property should be used and if it isn't that the local authority has a say in bringing it back into use. That is a new departure."
Out and out theft by the State. The payment of "rental minus the council's costs" and the alleged "benefit from any repairs" is a joke. The council will rack up costs, and by the time the house has been completely trashed by the council tenants the owner will almost certainly be left seriously out of pocket. And six months is nothing. It can take that long to sell a house. Perhaps the government should sort out its own appalling housing record (including long-term empty houses) before engaging in this blatant form of theft.
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