Labour-run council plots to seize 11,000 empty homes

Yahoo

20-03-2025

Is your council seeking to confiscate your home? Get in touch: [e-mail].
A central London council is plotting to seize control of thousands of empty homes and use them to shelter homeless families.
Labour-run Westminster council has urged the Government to relax rules that allow local authorities to confiscate empty properties from two years to six months.
The power, known as an empty dwelling management order (EDMO), was earmarked for reform by Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, in a policy announcement in December.
Adam Hug, the leader of Westminster council, described the two-year rule as 'extremely limited', and said that the local authority's 11,000 empty properties could be used to tackle the borough's housing crisis.
He said: 'Investment properties in Westminster are nothing new, but we are past the crisis point in a world where this council has just agreed to spend £140m on temporary accommodation to try and contain our housing lists.'
But property experts warned the move was an 'attack' on foreign investors, and would drive down prices in the capital amid an already 'challenging market' triggered by Labour's non-dom reforms.
Approximately a quarter of all residential properties in Westminster are not occupied by full-time by residents, according to the council. This amounts to roughly 34,400 homes.
Once short-term lets, migrant accommodation and other categories of housing are factored in, around 11,000 Westminster properties have been identified by the council as long-term vacant.
Mr Hug said: 'The current powers we have are extremely limited, partly by design as part of the reforms made in 2011-2012 to restrict their use to very specific criteria.'
According to the town hall's research, there are two homes in Westminster with owners living in Qatar that have not been lived in for 20 years.
He added: 'Our officers discovered two properties with an owner in Qatar that had been empty for 20 years. It is difficult to justify that in a world where the taxpayer is funding people in expensive hotels because there is nowhere in the City to live.'
Empty dwelling management orders are not currently in widespread use, with just six applications made by councils in 2018, according to the latest available figures published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Local authorities must currently wait at least two years to take possession of an empty home, and are required to prove it has been the target of anti-social behaviour.
However, ministers are considering ways to reform the policy as thousands of houses sit empty across the country, though no official proposals have been made yet.
A group of cross-party MPs last year backed reducing the amount of time a property must be empty before an application can be made from two years to six months.
In a letter to homelessness minister, Rushanara Ali, lawmakers late last year said the Government should consider 'reducing the qualifying period for EDMOs from two years to six months', and dropping the requirement for vacant homes to be linked to anti-social behaviour.
A report by campaigners Action on Empty Homes recently found that there were nearly 700,000 unfurnished properties across the country, of which 265,000 were classed as 'long-term empty' – meaning they have been unfurnished and not lived in for over six months.
But Mr Hug added that councils would still need to be 'extremely mindful' of property rights of owners. This, he said, would include taking note of where a property may be empty because it had been passed on in a will that was awaiting probate.
Estate agents based in the capital have warned that relaxing EMDO rules so that councils can take possession of a property if it is vacant for six months would be a blow to the city's international reputation with foreign buyers.
Mark Pollack, of residential estate against Aston Chase, said: 'Legally it's difficult to imagine that actually being enforced without huge objections. It would be a further attack on wealth and international investment in our cities.
He said Labour's tax raid on non-doms had already soured Britain's appeal with wealthy foreign investors.
'At a time when we are already in a challenging market, given the legislation around non-doms and geopolitical volatility, it's the last thing London's market needs that has not seen the kind of capital growth we had come to expect in the past.
'There are probably quite a lot of properties that are in foreign ownership that have been locked up and left for many years,' he said, adding that they were unlikely to be appropriate for housing as they are 'ordinarily in quite poor condition'.
Henry Pryor, an independent property agent, said he could understand the arguments for using EDMOs to provide housing.
He said: 'The problem is perceived to be that at a time of huge demand for housing at all levels, some homes are sitting empty and not being used for the purpose for which they were designed [and that] individual rights should be trumped by the state and society to get the property back into being used.'
However, he added that the amount of empty properties that are appropriate to be used as housing was usually slim.
'When you break down the numbers it's never as dramatic as the headline numbers suggest lots are being refurbished or empty while probate happens. So the total number when you get into is never quite as frightening or exciting depending on where you sit in the argument as it first appears.'
The Department for Housing was approached for comment.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.