Legal bid to bring old homes into use

Purge set to improve neighbourhoods

Officials are preparing legal action to force private landlords to bring disused properties back into use for the first time in a council’s history as part of a purge on unused homes.

HOUSING OFFICIALS are preparing legal action to force private landlords to bring disused properties back into use for the first time in a council’s history as part of a purge on unused housing which has already seen their numbers tumble.

Barnsley Council will employ an empty-housing officer later this month to help push forward a range of projects which should bring multiple benefits to areas blighted by houses which have fallen out of use.

Numbers of long-term empty homes have already fallen from four per cent to about 2.8 per cent but the council is now determined to go further in an attempt to improve neighbourhoods and provide more homes to meet demand.

Some projects which have already been successful have seen landlords ‘cajoled’ into selling vacant properties, which have then been restored using apprentices who have used the experience to go on to find permanent jobs.

Homes involved will be sold in some instances, with others used to help meet the need for affordable housing. In future, it is expected that type of work will continue but a raft of alternatives will also be available, with funding from Homes England, the body which oversees social housing nationally, helping to make the work possible.

In addition to helping landlords who are willing to sell properties, others will be given help with grants, cheap loans and professional guidance on how to manage their properties, in what housing officer David Malsom described as a “suite” of options.

However, where assistance is rejected, the council will be able to fall back on statutory powers to force property owners to take action. “We can do that, it is extremely rare as the softer support is bringing them into use naturally,” Mr Malsom said.

There are now cases where the council is preparing to pursue that route and, if it happens it will be the first time in Barnsley Council’s history that such action has been taken.

“Over the next three years the council will put in significant sums of its own money and money from Homes England, the overseer for housing stock in the country,” he said.

“We have a programme which we hope will deliver significant numbers of empty properties back into use.

“The main way to do it is through encouragement with property owners; some people buy properties at auction and then regret it.

“We will give people support to become a landlord, about their legal responsibilities. We have guidance about selling properties at auction, if that is what they want to do.

“People often get stuck on probate. We aim to unclog whatever is causing a problem. It is generally when properties have been empty for six months that they come onto our radar,” he said.

Homes which have had attention via the council can also have benefits for the tenants who will eventually live there because standards will be improved.

We have a plan which will deliver properties back into use. Barnsley Council housing officer David Malsom.