Justice for Property Rights (J4PR) has raised serious questions over the Government’s decision to give local authorities significantly enhanced powers to take control of the management of privately owned homes that have been empty for just six months.
The Government announced on Sunday that it will reduce the qualifying period for an Empty Dwelling Management Order (EDMO) from two years to six months.
Under an EDMO, ownership of the property does not transfer to the council, but the local authority can take over its management and return it to occupation. The Government is also removing some of the evidential requirements currently placed on councils when seeking an order through the Residential Property Tribunal.
This seems like continuing a new wave of ‘socialist style expropriation’. Another Bill is due to be passed over the coming months that proposes to reduce ground rent to £250, extinguish it after 40 years and not allow increases for inflation. This retrospectively will change over 5m contracts without compensation. This has already dopped values by 70% and made M&G, one of the UK’s largest pension funds report a loss this half-year who have called the law “Disproportionate”.
J4PR said the announcement raises important questions about proportionality, due process and the protection afforded to property owners.
Richard Merrin spokesperson for Justice for Property Rights, said: “The objective of bringing genuinely abandoned homes back into productive use is entirely understandable. But reducing the threshold for state intervention in a privately owned home from two years to just six months is a substantial change and deserves proper scrutiny.
“A property can be empty for six months for many legitimate reasons. It may be undergoing probate, caught in a legal dispute, awaiting substantial refurbishment, affected by a failed sale or simply temporarily vacant while an owner’s circumstances change.
“The important question is therefore not whether genuinely abandoned properties should be brought back into use. It is where the Government draws the line between tackling abandonment and protecting the rights of people who lawfully own property.
“That question becomes still more important when the Government is simultaneously proposing other substantial interventions in existing property rights through its leasehold reforms.
“Property rights depend upon certainty. Investors, pension funds, landlords, homeowners and small property owners need to know that rights acquired lawfully will continue to be recognised and that government intervention will be proportionate, transparent and subject to meaningful safeguards.
“We therefore need much greater clarity about the protections that will apply before a council can assume management of somebody else’s property after only six months.”
J4PR said the Government should provide further detail on how the new regime will distinguish between genuinely abandoned properties and homes that are temporarily vacant for legitimate reasons, what notice owners will receive, how owners will be able to challenge proposed intervention and how costs incurred while a property is under an EDMO will be treated.
The organisation also questioned whether the removal of existing evidential requirements could significantly lower the practical threshold for intervention.
The Government says the reforms are intended to help bring long-term empty homes back into use and make better use of England’s existing housing stock.
J4PR said the announcement should form part of a wider discussion about the treatment of private property rights in housing policy.
Merrin added: “Britain needs more homes and it needs existing homes to be used effectively. But those objectives do not remove the need for due process.
“There is an important principle at stake. Government should be able to explain clearly what circumstances justify intervention in privately owned property, what safeguards protect the owner and why the intervention is proportionate.
“Six months is a remarkably short period after which to contemplate taking over the management of someone’s home. Ministers now need to explain precisely where the safeguards lie.”
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