Derbyshire homes empty for more than 10 years causing 'nuisance' and attracting 'vermin'

Owners of long-term empty homes causing a “nuisance” and “vermin problems” in a part of Derbyshire have been charged an extra £450,000 in council tax. Derbyshire Dales District Council says 25 owners of homes empty for more than 10 years have been charged quadruple council tax.

Meanwhile, 34 owners of homes empty for five to 10 years have been charged triple in council tax and 105 owners of homes empty for two to five years have been charged double in council tax. In total, the council says this has brought in just under £450,000 as of July 2024.

It says some of its “most challenging cases” involve owners who can easily pay the extra council tax charges. The authority details one case in Wirksworth where an elderly resident owns four long-term empty homes but is “quite able” to pay the extra premium of £36,000.

A report on the issue says the four homes had been newbuilds but have been empty since 2010 and have never been occupied. Officials have worked with the owner for 18 months and they have now been allowed to inspect the homes and make an offer to buy them all and rent them as council housing.

An owner of seven flats in a former Victorian hospital building in Buxton Road, Ashbourne, has now put the properties up for auction and the new owner has renovated the homes and will be bringing them back into use “imminently”. The owners of two adjoining homes in Hackney, Matlock, have been empty for more than 20 years and there are “increasing concerns that the deteriorating condition of the property is also causing damp and occasional problems with vermin problems”.

The council has urged the owner to take action but “failed” to make progress and is now considering enforcement action for urgent repairs.

Meanwhile, there is a Bakewell home, which has been empty for more than 20 years and its condition is “slowly deteriorating”, with neighbours complaining about it. Officers say the “the garage has been burnt down, the back door is clearly insecure, and the garden is overgrown, extremely unsightly and causing a general nuisance”.

Promises have repeatedly been made by the owner, the council says, but not been acted on, with enforcement action being considered. Council officers detail that the Dales has a higher average number of long-term properties when compared with other council areas, with 1.4 per cent and rising, with only the Staffordshire Moorlands and Cotswolds having higher rates.

This could be for a number of reasons, they detail, including the “relatively high” number of older properties with larger renovation costs, with slower associated repair projects. The Dales also has the third highest proportion of 60+ and 80+ residents and the second highest rates of homes owned by private individuals or households (instead of being commercially owned).

Officers say there are some Dales-specific reasons why there are now more empty homes in the district than two to three years ago, including the property market “slowing down”. They write: “The property sales market has slowed down, and some landlords have withdrawn from the private rented sector. Interest rates have increased significantly, and properties do seem to be taking longer to sell.

“There are more properties in probate. It is not known whether this is because more people have passed away, or the probate process is generally taking longer though anecdotal evidence suggests the latter. Furthermore we have quite a high number of more complex cases and the age profile in the Dales compared to other areas is likely to also be a factor.

“Renovations are taking longer. This may be due to an increase in renovation costs and an increase in the cost of borrowing. It may also be because the disruption to supply chains and shortage of capacity in the building industry have still not fully recovered from the effects of Covid and, arguably, Brexit.”

During the past 18 months, the council has brought 166 long-term empty homes back into use and is working on a further 394 homes. The council wants to give more powers to its empty homes officer in a bid to bring more properties back into use, faster.

These include:

• The power to requisition information from the owner regarding other parties with a legal interest in the property such as absent tenants, leaseholders, joint owners etc
• The right and power of entry to an empty property for purposes of survey and inspection
• The power to serve enforcement notices requiring the undertaking of works to address disrepair, blight, or to secure properties that are open to unauthorised access
• The power to authorise prosecution for non-compliance or to issue proceedings to recover expenses incurred in undertaking works in default

The council writes: “Most owners we contact want to bring their property back into use and, with assistance, take positive steps to do so. Unfortunately, a small number of owners have refused to engage or have actively resisted taking effective actions to bring their property back into use, despite the work of the EHO (empty homes officer) and the application of the empty homes council tax premium.

“The EHO post does not currently have any delegated power of entry to inspect or serve empty homes related enforcement/property improvement notices or authorise works in default. The limited capacity of the environmental health, planning and council tax teams to provide support in these matters has resulted in no empty homes enforcement action being undertaken beyond issuing a small number of warning letters.

“This has restricted the effectiveness of actions to reduce nuisance issues associated with problem long-term empty homes, such as blight and disrepair, and take steps to bring them back into use where the owner has refused to engage.” The council has currently identified 76 homes that have been empty for more than five years, the council says, along with 161 empty for two-to-five years and 372 empty for between six months and two years.

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