Tuesday, July 07, 2009

CPOs be very afraid

Three years ago the Mail warned us that we should all be afraid because 250,000 “homes of the dead” could be seized by the state under draconian new powers. They were talking about the introduction of empty dwelling management orders (EDMOs). As Mail headlines go I have to admit it is one of their better ones. I remember responding at the time and saying that councils had had compulsory purchase powers for years so why the fuss over EDMOs. The government said at the time that they only expected a few EDMOs to be used. Well I hate to say told you so, but….told you so. Now the Mail is warning us that although very few EDMOS are being used we should be very afraid of compulsory purchase orders. I said to them this time that I doubted more CPOs were being used because in a falling property market there is a greater risk of councils not recovering their purchase costs when selling property on. So if you ask me I wouldn’t be afraid this time either.

1 comment:

  1. If a CPO is unopposed the costs can be minimal. There is no need to pay money up front. The way to do it is to have the CPO confirmed, vest the property with the council, then market the property, this will achieve "market value", the money recieved (less whatever it owes) is then handed to the previous owner. PS always have an uncompleted Sec215 or HHSRS in your back pocket to trump basic loss claims.

    ReplyDelete