Property owners told to give up their houses for asylum seekers

COUNCILS are compulsorily purchasing empty properties to meet a surge in the number of asylum seekers being granted leave to remain in the UK.

Council chiefs have complained they are not being given enough time to find alternative accommodation for successful asylum seekers because of the Home Office’s faster decision-making designed to clear huge backlogs.

The policy has been highlighted by the plight of an elderly couple who were told they had to give up their home to asylum seekers because of a shortage of suitable accommodation.

Jose and Ted Saunders said they were “shocked” to be told by North Northamptonshire

council that their mid-terraced house in Rushden, near Wellingborough, was deemed to be empty or derelict, enabling the authority to force them to sell it.

The letter said the council was seeing a “considerable increase” in positive immigration decisions being made in favour of asylum seekers, mainly single men, and the authority was “struggling” to source suitable accommodation.

It added: “The ideal long-term solution would be to provide accommodation by using empty properties which would benefit owners and the project.” It said the council could make a compulsory purchase order on the property.

Council chiefs said they had to adopt such tactics because of the faster processing of asylum claims by the Home Office.

“In terms of trying to acquire more social housing, councils will adopt a variety of measures, one of them being identifying empty properties that they can bring back into use,” said a senior council source.

Three days after receiving the letter, the Saunders received an apology, saying council staff had mistakenly earmarked the house for possible compulsory purchase.

‘The ideal long-term solution would be to provide accommodation byusing empty properties’