A property group is complaining about the government’s proposal to make it easier for councils to bring long-term empty homes back into use.
The government wants Empty Dwelling Management Orders to be eligible for use by councils when properties are empty for six months – not the current two years.
EDMOs allow councils to take over the management of long-term empty homes and return them to occupation for up to seven years while ownership remains with the property owner.
A little-known group called Justice for Property Rights (J4PR) says this follows another measure it is unhappy about – the plan to reduce ground rent to £250, extinguish it after 40 years and not allow increases for inflation.
J4PR spokesperson Richard Merrin says: “The objective of bringing genuinely abandoned homes back into productive use is entirely understandable. But reducing the threshold for state intervention in a privately owned home from two years to just six months is a substantial change and deserves proper scrutiny.
“A property can be empty for six months for many legitimate reasons. It may be undergoing probate, caught in a legal dispute, awaiting substantial refurbishment, affected by a failed sale or simply temporarily vacant while an owner’s circumstances change.
“The important question is therefore not whether genuinely abandoned properties should be brought back into use. It is where the Government draws the line between tackling abandonment and protecting the rights of people who lawfully own property.
“That question becomes still more important when the Government is simultaneously proposing other substantial interventions in existing property rights through its leasehold reforms.
“Property rights depend upon certainty. Investors, pension funds, landlords, homeowners and small property owners need to know that rights acquired lawfully will continue to be recognised and that government intervention will be proportionate, transparent and subject to meaningful safeguards.
“We therefore need much greater clarity about the protections that will apply before a council can assume management of somebody else’s property after only six months.”
J4PR wants further detail on how the new regime will distinguish between genuinely abandoned properties and homes that are temporarily vacant for legitimate reasons, what notice owners will receive, how owners will be able to challenge proposed intervention and how costs incurred while a property is under an EDMO will be treated.
J4PR suggests the announcement should form part of a wider discussion about the treatment of private property rights in housing policy.
This article is taken from Landlord Today