Bournemouth homeowners warned over leaving properties empty

5:24pm Monday 17th November 2008

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PROPERTY owners who let homes sit empty are being warned they could be hit with expensive enforcement action.

Bournemouth council has unveiled a new action plan to reduce the number of empty properties across the town, which at the last count was 2,690.

This represents just over three per cent of the 82,000 homes in Bournemouth and around a third of the empty homes have been vacant for more than six months.

At the same time, the number of people on the council’s housing list has gone up year on year and now stands at 7,269.

The council is now aiming to bring at least 210 empty properties back into use between now and 2010/11.

Work will be concentrated on properties that have been empty the longest, those that have sparked complaints from neighbours and those that are the most cost-effective to bring back into use.

Property owners will be offered help to bring properties back into use, including grants and loans for home improvements and advice on how to rent or sell their property.

But if owners refuse offers of help, they risk being hit in the pocket. The council intends to charge full council tax for properties that have been empty for six months or more and will consider taking enforcement action.

This could range from serving a legal notice on the owner requiring them to improve their property to the ultimate sanction of applying to the government for a Compulsory Purchase Order.

Cllr Peter Charon, cabinet member for housing and procurement, said: “The problem of empty homes has been going on for a long time and the vast majority of those are in private hands.

“We’ve got to look at the reasons why that is so.

“By using existing properties we can get people off the waiting list and take some of the pressures off the requirements to deliver new builds.

“It’s not always about building more, more, more. If we can just bring 25 per cent of these homes back into use, that will be more than 500 – that’s a lot of properties.”