Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey Council to Seize Empty Homes for Homeless Residents
Haringey Council says it is initiating a programme to clamp down on empty homes. A report to Cabinet this week (attached below) said it is a scandal that homes stand empty during a housing crisis.
There are 1,188 empty homes in the borough and one in every 100 properties have been empty for at least the last six months.
The empty homes could house more than a third of the Haringey households currently homeless and living in temporary accommodation.
The newest figures published by housing charity Shelter, from the first quarter of 2019, record Haringey as having 2,933 households in temporary accommodation. Of those, 2,588 were households with dependent children.
The report this week said that the number of empty properties was fast rising. Between October 2018 and October 2019, empty homes rose by more than 35 per cent from 732 to 996. In the last eight months, the figure has risen by another 20pc, to 1,188.
In the report, the Council said: “Where owners of empty homes cannot be traced, or they are unwilling to work with us in a meaningful way towards bringing their property back into use, we will not hesitate to use the range of enforcement powers available to us. These include Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMOs), enforced sale and CPO.”
EDMOs permit a local authority to take possession – but not ownership – of a property for up to seven years and install tenants in it.
The council has published plans to top up its existing £1million CPO fund with an extra £5million in next year’s budget, so it can forcibly buy up unused properties.
This move comes hot on the heels of another report by pressure group Action on Empty Homes which challenged Haringey's claim to be the only Borough in England to have no second homes. Learn more on the group's website, here.
See Haringey's Empty Homes web page here.
Tags for Forum Posts: empty homes
- Attachments:
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Haringey Empty Homes Policy.pdf, 457 KB
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hisky0 on
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Don't really agree with this tbh, the council keep moaning they have no money, and now they've found an extra £5m to buy up property? How's about just forcing the sale of empty properties so that families can buy them? In the case of period properties being used for HMO housing around here they're all in a disgusting state already (and make some streets look very slummy) and it's not the same as using that money to build new purpose built houses.
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Interesting reply. At times there is a lack of investment in an area, it’s infrastructure and community.the council doesn’t have any money, its hands are tied a lot of the time by legislation from central government, though that isn’t a defence for poor decision making.
I would say that the rise to the top for people able to buy property contributes to this and new purpose built flats are always of benefit to the developers not the council or even local community. So I would encourage the council to buy up any empty properties in the borough and rent them out in cases to families. The wish to alleviate homelessness, which in the 21st shouldn’t be happening in my view is applaudable. I think that what might be challenging to readers In this post is the challenge to private ownership (and our little castle) and that is definitely something to examine when it arises.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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It comes down to the difference between capital and revenue funding. This scheme can be funded from revenue (income) whereas new build is capital and needs government approval to borrow - something that has not been forthcoming for a decade. Also, an empty home can be sufficiently refurbished and tenanted in a few months. Acquisition of land, drawing up plans, getting government approval and the building can take years
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Permalink Reply by Neil on
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This is left wing spin from the Labour council trying to hide their own shambles with empty council owned properties. The council owns hundreds of empty houses and flats which are what they call 'void'.
These 'voids' are awaiting refurbishment or decorating but the work is neglected.
Local residents have been pressing Labour councillors for ten years to repair a run down, and now derelict, council house at 43 Finsbury Road, N22, and have been ignored. The property could house two homeless families when converted into two flats. The neglect has led to rebuild costs of about £250,000 and ten years of lost rental income.
See a photo of the house below.
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I’d be interested to see the data that shows there are hundreds of empty Council properties
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This graphic shows the scale of privately owned properties in London that had lain empty for six months or more (as at the end of 2019 when there were over 22,000 in the capital)
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Permalink Reply by kotkas on
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I am not sure I'd call that a huge number in the context of 3.5m dwellings in London - it's a mere 0.6%.
You can't simply assume 100% of that 0.6% are so called 'investment properties.'
Looking at the 'hot spots' - some of them fit the narrative of superprime property left empty by oligarchs (see central London.) Not sure the same can be said for Croydon, Enfield, Barnet - my guess is that because they are larger they cover more new developments which may bump their numbers.
The whole 'empty investment properties' topic is really questionable outside the large, un-rentable mega mansions.
No rational property investor would leave a property empty just to capture the capital gain, when they can also rent it out - even the smallest rental yield makes it a net-positive project.
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I would highly suspect that at least some of the 22,000 empty properties are those whose previous owner occupier has died, and require probate to be dealt with as well as possible refurbishment.
Also, residential property gets more use than almost anything else (certainly more than many of the things people store inside their homes) - if a local high street had only 0.6% of units vacant for six months or more, that would probably be a very successful retail destination!
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Permalink Reply by Richard Matz on
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Thanks for the graphic, Michael, but possible requisition of empty private housing stock is only part of the solution. All around London, large council estates lay empty in predominantly Labour boroughs such as the 400 flat Carpenters Estate in Newham (where there is a waiting list of 28K), in Southwark where the Aylesbury Estate has lain empty for several years after the destruction of some 2000 council flats on the Heygate Estate for private development by Lendlease. Having seen off Lendlease and the Haringey Development Vehicle in our own borough, it would be interesting to see the figures for vacant council stock here. A sabre-rattling focus purely on vacant private property has the feel of a disingenuous distraction.
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It is only part of the solution Richard, but an important part of it. When people think of empty private sector homes, they may think of the derelict house or flat on their street, but what makes up up most of the 22,000 plus vacant properties are “buy to leave” homes - perfectly good, move in now homes that where bought as investments with no intention of inhabiting them. I can’t see how wanting to get these into use is a distraction.
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