Rich could be forced to give up unused homes

MILLIONAIRE owners of so-called “ghost homes” in Britain’s richest borough could be ordered to fill them with families to cope with the housing shortage, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The Conservative-led Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is lobbying ministers to change the law to allow them to move tenants into private homes which have lain empty for years in the borough.

However, the council need the Government to make a small change to its powers so they can take action because they currently only relate to vandalised properties rather than those lying empty.

Chris Bailey, campaigns manager at the charity Empty Homes, said: “We need to find a way to bring all England’s 205,000 longterm unused properties back into use to help tackle the housing crisis.

The initiative was signed off by Kensington and Chelsea’s cabinet at a meeting last weekend. Details were sent this week to Kit Malthouse, the Housing minister, by Kim Taylor-smith, the council’s deputy leader who leads on Grenfell and housing.

In the letter, seen by The Daily Telegraph, Mr Taylorsmith says the council is looking at “new and innovative ways to increase social housing stock in the borough” and “pilot new ways of housing the homeless”.

Kensington and Chelsea is a victim of the “buy-to-leave market” where buyers, often from overseas, purchase homes in the borough and wait for prices to increase.

There are 621 “super-expensive” properties in the borough that have been empty and unfurnished for more than two years.

Mr Taylor-smith says new rules would make it “easier, quicker and more financially viable to target all empty properties that could and should be put to use to alleviate pressing housing needs.”