It's Not Difficult

I think I’d rather be told straight “You’re wrong!” But ours is not the kind of issue that promotes outright opposition. The strongest resistance we normally get goes something like this “Of course I agree that bringing empty homes into use is a good idea, but in practice it’s just too difficult.”

It’s an annoying put down because it would be petulant to get cross in response. But that doesn’t mean I agree.

These words most commonly come from the lips of local authority councillors or people running housing associations. What it generally means is that they know they have to create more homes, but the way they know how to do it is to do a deal with a developer who is building a large new housing development. The skills and knowledge you need to pull off deals like this are not to be sniffed at. Many housing associations are very good at it. And it works – or at least it did.

What it also implies is the skills they used to have to negotiate the purchase of individual houses and the skills to renovate them are no longer needed.

But now housing associations have a problem. Last year just 118,000 homes were built in this country – half the government’s target. That’s half the number of potential deals they need; and unless millions of pounds of taxpayers money is poured in, half the number of new social homes.

Now lets look at a different type of housing supplier; a private landlord. Between them private landlords provide about the same amount of housing as councils and housing associations. Very few try to do deals with developers and hardly any build new homes. Where most acquire property is through buying existing second-hand homes. Visit a property auction house and you will see most that homes are bought by private landlords, what’s more most of those they buy have vacant possession and need to be improved before they can be let. Private landlords it seems still have the skills to buy and renovate empty property.

Now, of course, private landlords operate on a different scale to councils or housing associations. A recent ARLA survey showed the average private landlord owned seven properties. The National Housing Federation’s latest figures show that the average housing association has more than 2,000 properties. But if bringing an empty home into use isn’t too difficult for a landlord who owns a handful of property, there’s no rational reason why it should be too difficult for a landlord who owns thousands. The housing market has changed, and if social housing is going to keep pace it needs to borrow the skills of private landlords. Bringing empty homes really is a good idea, and it’s a highly viable way of creating new housing. It’s only too difficult if you don’t know how to do it.

Squatters in the MP's house

The news just gets worse for MP couple the Keens. Their empty home has at least been reoccupied but not, I suspect, in the manner they would have wished. A group of squatters has taken residence and they don’t appear to feel restrained about telling the world.

This now leaves the Keens with a dilemma. Do they evict them as they can quite easily by getting a court order, or leave them be, and try and reach an accommodation with them?

Eviction is fairly easy to do. They just need to get an order from the court and if the squatters don’t leave they are committing an offence and can be forcibly removed. In most cases this works and the squatters leave quietly. Given that most squatters are looking for somewhere to live it is unlikely they will return. It would probably be a good idea to beef up the security and if the property is going to lie empty for any length of time this could be expensive.

Reaching accommodation with squatters is a pretty pragmatic choice for property owners too. Licences can be drawn up easily which gives both the squatters (now licences) limited right of occupation and gives the owner control of the property. If the property would otherwise stay empty for any length of time this can be quite sensible. With more to loose, most licensees treat the property well and generally the property is less problematic for the owner than if it were empty.

So in most cases my advice would be. If you need the property back soon evict the squatters, but if you don’t, consider reaching agreement with them.
But then this isn’t a normal case. The squatters have a point to make, and what’s more plenty of people will sympathise with it, even if they don’t approve of the method. Evict them and the Keens’ will provide a great media spectacle as squatters are dragged screaming from the house and then have to board the place up like a military installation to prevent more squatters getting in again.
Reaching agreement with them might be counterintuitive, but it would hardly get the Daily Mail off their backs. Hmmm.. such are the dilemmas for those who leave their properties empty.

Oh Goody! Another Government National Register

I’ve just been listening to the government’s response to the Rugg review on the Private Rented Sector. It didn’t leave me enthused. The key proposal is to introduce a national register of every private rented property and landlord in the country funded by a fee to the landlord of around £85. This will sit on top of existing HMO licensing, selective licensing, additional licensing and the myriad of discretionary accreditation schemes.

What the government has done is fall into the research trap. Julie Rugg is fine woman and a highly respected academic. But if you ever give a researcher a job to do, you can be certain that the top recommendation they will come back with is – let’s do more research. On this point Julie Rugg didn’t disappoint. It was the top recommendation of her review. No doubt similar studies got the government thinking that a national ID database was a good idea too.