Story submitted by DGibbens on
In the wake of Amber Rudd's resignation as Home Secretary, Sajid Javid been appointed in her place and has in turn been succeeded by James Brokenshire. Brokenshire was previously Secretary for Northern Ireland, a role from which he stepped down four months ago in order to receive treatement for lung cancer.
Story submitted by DGibbens on
The Information Commissioner has shown where her sympathies lie by slapping a massive £120,000 money penalty on the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for accidentally revealing the names of owners of empty homes in the Borough, along with the addresses of the homes concerned.
Story submitted by DGibbens on
Having led the way with Empty Homes Premium, Scotland may well be en route to develop a new device for the empty homes toolkit in the form of Compulsory Sale Orders. These would be targeted at 'vacant, derelict and empty land', but in principle this would seem to include empty dwellings.
Story submitted by DGibbens on
Following written Parliamentary questions from Labour's Shadow Housing Minister, John Healey, about the housing situation of Grenfell survivors, Dominic Raab has provided a detailed breakdown in what is described as a 'holding answer':
Story submitted by DGibbens on
Farmers are being given enhanced options for converting agricultural buildings to homes through an extension of Permitted Development Rights. These allow owners to effect a change of use without needing full planning permission.
The amended development right for the change of use of agricultural buildings to provide up to 5 new homes will allow for:
Story submitted by DGibbens on
The charity Empty Homes is now recruiting a replacement for current director, Helen Williams, who is leaving after four years. It is understood she will be taking up a senior role at Locality.
The announcement on the Empty Homes Agency website says:
Story submitted by DGibbens on
The charity Empty Homes has issued a press release calling for more to be done about empty homes as the number has risen for the first time since 2008.
The press release is reproduced below:
ACTION NEEDED AS NUMBER OF LONG-TERM EMPTY HOMES RISES FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2008
The campaigning charity Empty Homes calls for Government action as the number of long-term empty homes recorded in official data rose in 2017 for the first time since 2008.
Story submitted by DGibbens on
Seven leading firms within the Property Guardian industry have taken a major step forwards towards self-regulation with the publication of a detailed new guide on the legal framwework that protects property guardians.
Entitled 'The law on property guardianship', the document describes itself as 'a white paper setting out the health, safety and legal status of security through occupation'. It is written by three lawyers, including Giles Peaker, who has often made robust comments about some industry practices in his nearlylegal blog and is clearly not anyone's poodle.
Story submitted by DGibbens on
[Paid-for Contentl]
An exciting opportunity has arisen to work as the Empty Property Officer for Cherwell District and South Northamptonshire Councils, on a 3-year fixed term contract with a salary of up to £3,349.58 plus benefits. The closing date for applications is 28th January.
The advertisement for the post follows.
The Job:
Story submitted by DGibbens on
The provisional New Homes Bonus figures released towards the end of December 2017 show the number of long-term empties increasing, bringing to an end the series of year-on-year reductions that had lasted since the NHB was first introduced.
Story submitted by DGibbens on
After little over six months in post as Minister of State for Housing and Planning, Alok Sharma has shuffled off the stage, to be replaced by the 16th** such minister in the last 20 years.
Story submitted by DGibbens on
The Liberal Democrats have launched a campaign at local level to encourage councils to do more about empty homes - whilst criticizing local authorities for insufficient action to date.
Story submitted by Nick P-G on
Empty Home Premium would become chargeable at 200% of Full Charge! So said Fiscal Phil Hammond. If you've been busy calculating the increased revenue your Council may earn next year, hold your horses. As the change will require a change to primary legislation, the 200% charge might not be lawful until 1st April 2019. So don't count on any extra revenue in 2018.
Are you confident that you actually know how NHB was calculated for 2016/17. I must admit, I am a little lost and therefore quite ashamed.
Story submitted by DGibbens on
In a speech to the first Community-Led Housing Conference, Alok Sharma MP praised the sector and announced a new programme of financial support.
£60million has already been given to local authorities with high levels of second home ownership. The minister has now offered a further £60million to help fund further development 'for the first year alone', implying an ongoing programme. This accords with the announcement for the original £60million, which was presented as a 'hypothecation' from the additional revenue being raised by the 3% SDLT surcharge on purchases of second homes.
Story submitted by DGibbens on
The BBCs newly launched Shared Data Unit has already produced a major new data resource for empty homes.[1]
This shows great promise as far as future reporting of the empty homes issue is concerned, given the evident attention to detail shown in the data series and the clear intention to produce more meaningful statistics by intelligently correlating the raw government data on empties with other variables such as population.
Story submitted by DGibbens on
Most practitioners will by now be aware that the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, has decided to allow local authorities in England to increase the Empty Homes Premium to 100%, bringing the maximum rate in line with Wales and Scotland. Better late than never: this is a welcome move.
Story submitted by DGibbens on
The recently published report by the Independent Task Force into the Grenfell fire recovery makes frustrating reading. Leaving aside the detail, the bigger picture is one where the Grenfell survivors are caught in the middle of an experiment to reconstruct on the fly a local authority which all concerned agree failed abjectly in its initial response to the tragedy.
Story submitted by DGibbens on
One of the few positives to emerge from the National Audit Office's investigation into New Homes Bonus - other than its acknowledged stimulus to local authority efforts to bring empty homes back into use - was that it was easy to understand.[1]
Story submitted by Lynne Leach on
For the second year running (as mentioned in my blog post) our Cumbria Empty Property Group is producing a regional newsletter for Empty Homes Week.
Story submitted by dpclough on
Cornwall Council offers a range of advice and assistance to help bring long-term empty properties back into use. Its Empty Property Loan scheme has loaned more than £2 million to directly enable over 100 residential units.