London Evening Standard/London
Foreign investors who buy London properties but leave them empty for more than six months should face having them seized by town halls to rent out to ease the capital’s housing crisis, a minister urged.
Simon Hughes called for existing powers to be reformed so boroughs can gain control over empty homes in just months rather than years.
“Far too rarely are they used to bring properties back into use,” he told the Standard.
“The expectation would be that if you buy somewhere, whether you are an individual owner or an oligarch from Russia, if it’s not being used you are as much at risk of it being borrowed, taken, acquired on a temporary basis for a fixed term by the local community for it to be used.”
Bermondsey and Old Southwark MP Hughes, who is also a justice minister, stressed councils should only be allowed to intervene for properties genuinely being kept empty rather than those used as a second home or as a London base for a company or individual, even if it was just a few times a year.
He said the time period after which town halls could step in might vary from borough to borough - “for new properties I would think six months, for existing properties I would think a year.”
He believes 12 months would allow people time to renovate existing properties, if they want to use them, while newly-built homes should be ready to live in.
Ownership of properties would not change but the council could ensure they were rented out to stop the creation of “ghetto” communities of empty homes.
For older properties needing refurbishment the town hall could recoup costs through rental income under the proposals, which would be similar to existing Empty Dwelling Management Orders which currently can only be used for buildings unoccupied for at least two years.
Hughes, who also backs simpler compulsory purchase powers for councils, proposed five other key changes to tackle London’s housing crisis:
l At least half of new housing in each borough should be affordable.
l New homes should be advertised locally before overseas.
l Developers’ planning applications should include economic viability assessments for affordable housing.
l The government should be allowed to appeal against planning decisions if councils break affordable housing commitments.
l The national planning policy framework should prioritise housing need, over demand.
Ministers dispute that thousands of properties are left empty in London by investors, and say the number of empty homes has fallen to a 10-year low and councils already have powers to get them back into use.
Simon Hughes: hoping to tackle housing crisis
