Labour-run council plots to seize 11,000 empty homes

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/westminster-plots-to-seize-11000-empty-homes/

by BestButtons

39 comments

  1. Six months is bloody ridiculous, probate usually takes longer than that and can often take a couple of years. Probably why the original two year time span was put in place.

  2. > A central London council is plotting to seize control of thousands of empty homes and use them to shelter homeless families

    The heartless bastards, these houses are for parking capital for overseas millionaires, not homes for families to live in. What do we look like, some kind of society? Those don’t exist remember.

  3. This sounds like a great policy.

    There needs to be exemptions process in place in case you’re in a dispute with an inherited property, or waiting to move in because of building work,etc. But overall it sounds like a great policy that will not only open a load of housing, but will give landlords an incentive to lower rents to get a tenant in before their property gets taken because it has been empty for too long.

    It will be interesting to see how people spin this as a being bad.

  5. Article contents:

    *By Noah Eastwood, Money Reporter, 20 Mar 2025 – 07:00AM GMT*

    A central London council is plotting to seize control of thousands of empty homes and use them to shelter homeless families.

    Labour-run Westminster council has urged the Government to relax rules that allow local authorities to confiscate empty properties from two years to six months.

    The power, known as an empty dwelling management order (EDMO), was earmarked for reform by Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, in a policy announcement in December.

    Adam Hug, the leader of Westminster council, described the two-year rule as “extremely limited”, and said that the local authority’s 11,000 empty properties could be used to tackle the borough’s housing crisis.

    He said: “Investment properties in Westminster are nothing new, but we are past the crisis point in a world where this council has just agreed to spend £140m on temporary accommodation to try and contain our housing lists.”

    But property experts warned the move was an “attack” on foreign investors, and would drive down prices in the capital amid an already “challenging market” triggered by Labour’s non-dom reforms.

    **Britain’s 700,000 vacant homes**

    Approximately a quarter of all residential properties in Westminster are not occupied by full-time by residents, according to the council. This amounts to roughly 34,400 homes.

    Once short-term lets, migrant accommodation and other categories of housing are factored in, around 11,000 Westminster properties have been identified by the council as long-term vacant.

    Mr Hug said: “The current powers we have are extremely limited, partly by design as part of the reforms made in 2011-2012 to restrict their use to very specific criteria.”

    According to the town hall’s research, there are two homes in Westminster with owners living in Qatar that have not been lived in for 20 years.

    He added: “Our officers discovered two properties with an owner in Qatar that had been empty for 20 years. It is difficult to justify that in a world where the taxpayer is funding people in expensive hotels because there is nowhere in the City to live.”

    Empty dwelling management orders are not currently in widespread use, with just six applications made by councils in 2018, according to the latest available figures published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

    Local authorities must currently wait at least two years to take possession of an empty home, and are required to prove it has been the target of anti-social behaviour.

    However, ministers are considering ways to reform the policy as thousands of houses sit empty across the country, though no official proposals have been made yet.

    A group of cross-party MPs last year backed reducing the amount of time a property must be empty before an application can be made from two years to six months.

    In a letter to homelessness minister, Rushanara Ali, lawmakers late last year said the Government should consider “reducing the qualifying period for EDMOs from two years to six months”, and dropping the requirement for vacant homes to be linked to anti-social behaviour.

    A report by campaigners Action on Empty Homes recently found that there were nearly 700,000 unfurnished properties across the country, of which 265,000 were classed as “long-term empty” – meaning they have been unfurnished and not lived in for over six months.

    But Mr Hug added that councils would still need to be “extremely mindful” of property rights of owners. This, he said, would include taking note of where a property may be empty because it had been passed on in a will that was awaiting probate.

    **A plot to evict foreign buyers**

    Estate agents based in the capital have warned that relaxing EMDO rules so that councils can take possession of a property if it is vacant for six months would be a blow to the city’s international reputation with foreign buyers.

    Mark Pollack, of residential estate against Aston Chase, said: “Legally it’s difficult to imagine that actually being enforced without huge objections. It would be a further attack on wealth and international investment in our cities.

    He said Labour’s tax raid on non-doms had already soured Britain’s appeal with wealthy foreign investors.

    “At a time when we are already in a challenging market, given the legislation around non-doms and geopolitical volatility, it’s the last thing London’s market needs that has not seen the kind of capital growth we had come to expect in the past.

    “There are probably quite a lot of properties that are in foreign ownership that have been locked up and left for many years,” he said, adding that they were unlikely to be appropriate for housing as they are “ordinarily in quite poor condition”.

    Henry Pryor, an independent property agent, said he could understand the arguments for using EDMOs to provide housing.

    He said: “The problem is perceived to be that at a time of huge demand for housing at all levels, some homes are sitting empty and not being used for the purpose for which they were designed [and that] individual rights should be trumped by the state and society to get the property back into being used.”

    However, he added that the amount of empty properties that are appropriate to be used as housing was usually slim.

    “When you break down the numbers it’s never as dramatic as the headline numbers suggest lots are being refurbished or empty while probate happens. So the total number when you get into is never quite as frightening or exciting depending on where you sit in the argument as it first appears.”

    The Department for Housing was approached for comment.

    ——————————————————————————————————————————————-

    My comment:

    Typical for Telegraph to word the initiative as if it was a some kind of a conspiracy by Labour council rather than an initiative to ease the housing crisis. It makes sense to force the properties back to use instead of letting them stay empty for years because they are treated as an investment only.

  6. > A central London council is plotting to seize control of thousands of empty homes and use them to shelter homeless families.

    Those homeless families should stay on the streets where they belong. Just the thought of those children getting to sleep somewhere warm and secure makes me sick.

    Can I have a weekly column yet, The Telegraph?

  7. >Labour-run Westminster council **has urged the Government to relax rules** that allow local authorities to confiscate empty properties from two years to six months.

    Ah! OK, so the headline should be:

    “Labour run council asks government to relax the time limit for triggering a property tribunal which may result in an Empty Dwelling Management Order from two years to six months “

  8. > But property experts warned the move was an “attack” on foreign investors, and would drive down prices in the capital amid an already “challenging market” triggered by Labour’s non-dom reforms.

    That doesn’t sound like a wholly bad thing to me… 
    We have a housing crisis and while I don’t know enough about this particular policy to pass judgement, allowing people to leave a house vacant for 20 years simply because they can afford to does seem against the “common sense” that the telegraph often espouses. 

  9. Local labour finding the balls the parliamentary party lost.

  10. Great idea for properties that, for _no good reason_, are empty.

    They should take possession, compulsorily purchase, & rent or re-sell to people who NEED them.

  11. *Plots*….not like the Torygraph giving a negative headline to a positive

  12. What a stupid policy.

    What a stupid article.

    News: “They want to change the law to seize property which has been empty for two years, to 6 months”

    Article: “They found a foreign investor which has kept a property empty for 20 years”.

    So this is completely unrelated, they could have seized it for the past 18 years and didn’t.

    So many things in property take longer than 6 months, those that you want to target with this kind of thing is already targeted at 2 years. The amount of man hours that would be wasted checking on property renovations and probate is going to be far more than they gain. There is a reason this is set at 2 years currently.

  13. Call me crazy but big multinational companies shouldn’t be allowed to buy up houses on bulk

  14. “Plots to seize”.

    I don’t really need to read the article to know how the Telegraph feels about this, do I?

    I wonder if we’ll ever see a time in this country when newspapers just report the news without trying to tell you how they think you should feel about it?

  15. Tbh it’s a great win-win. Investors won’t allow their assets to be seized so will move in a tenant. Investors keep their property and receive rent, while increasing number of rentals in Westminster, and, hopefully, easing pressure on rent prices.

  16. They twirled their moustaches while they plotted I heard…

  18. This is clearly an issue in central London but of marginal interest elsewhere. We can all point to properties which have set empty for years but there usually reasons for it. Even if the rules were changed the council would still have to know, and be sure of the legal aspects of ownership. Then there are construction related issues which can be very costly if the building is subject to subsidence or exposed asbestos, just to give examples.

    All the guff about non doms and agitated estate agents is Torygraph waffle.

  19. I already know the Telegraph’s angle without needing to open the ‘article’

  20. Long way to go, “there are nearly 700,000 homes in England that are unfurnished and standing empty. Over 265,000 of these are classed as ‘long-term empty’.”

    [https://www.actiononemptyhomes.org/](https://www.actiononemptyhomes.org/)

    Then perhaps they can stop taking over farm land and flood plains to build new houses.

    The main problem is the location of the empty houses, because people even in need won’t want to live there. There is a reason why a lot of empty houses are in certain locations, no jobs, vandalism, high crime, drug users.

  21. Sees headlines that includes “Labour” and “plot to seize”

    Notices it’s from the Telegraph

    Sighs

  22. There are properties around me, both residential and commercial, that have sat empty for a decade.

    Many of them are continually available to rent, at rates nobody in the their right mind would pay. You’d think the owners would see that nobody is renting their buildings, and lower the rates to something people can actually afford, but they don’t. They’ve missed out on ten years of rent, and they don’t care at all, because ultimately they don’t hold these properties for rental, they hold them purely watch the sale prices increase.

    Nobody can rent a home, nobody can rent a shop, nobody can rent a warehouse or workshop. Empty buildings everywhere.

    It should be illegal.

  23. Dastardly labour plots to taken houses off the Holy God Amongst Men Masters Of All Who Should Kneel To None, The Landlords.

  24. Can someone ELI5 this for me.

    Population growth is stagnating and there’s a million unoccupied houses in the country.

    So why is house building targets the answer and not house acquisition?

  25. The flat next to mine was empty for 7 years. It was literally the one I went to view to buy. They sat on it for years, then when finally sold the person developed it, left it another couple years then finally rented it out. This is what is contributing to the lack of homes. Property as assets not homes.

  26. There are a couple of problems with a blanket change… Probate can take more than 6 months, even without disputes.

    But overall, it seems like a good idea.

  27. PLOTS?? That’s what evil villains do in lairs. I can’t believe Labour is SPENDING MY TAX MONEY on evil lairs.

    SEIZE?? That’s what evil fascist dictators do!! This isn’t what Churchill and Thatcher died for!!

    11,000 homes??? Oh… empty ones. So… they’re going to make sure homes don’t sit empty? So that people can use them?

    Actually seems kinda a good idea.

    Going beyond the headline, the Empty Dwelling Management Order (EDMO) came into effect in England on 6 April 2006, under the Housing Act 2004.

    So… it was in operation for the ENTIRE last government, and the Telegraph didn’t kick up much of a fuss then. Why now?

    “Labour-run Westminster council has urged the Government to relax rules that allow local authorities to [confiscate empty properties](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/how-labour-soon-force-rent-empty-home/) from two years to six months.”

    So… it’s a minor change to a law. Okay.

    “Approximately a quarter of all residential properties in Westminster are not occupied by full-time by residents, according to the council. This amounts to roughly 34,400 homes.

    Once short-term lets, migrant accommodation and other categories of housing are factored in, around 11,000 Westminster properties have been identified by the council as long-term vacant.”

    So it’s not even ALL empty homes. It’s not like AirBnB investments are being stolen by the government.

    “Estate agents based in the capital have warned that relaxing EMDO rules so that councils can take possession of a property if it is vacant for six months would be a blow to the city’s international reputation with foreign buyers.”

    Oh no. Not our precious… foreign owners.

  28. My local council has a list of 6000 long term empty properties.

    I’m in an area of 100000 people…

    Multiply this by the whole country… Maybe there’s an artificial housing shortage?

  29. Good. Bring it on. A small start, but a step in the right direction.

    In fact, it should be a statutory duty on a council, if a dwelling has remained empty for more than 12 months.

  30. To inject some concreteness to this discussion, there’s a Commons Briefing Paper on EDMO’s here:

    [https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04129/](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04129/)

    [https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04129/SN04129.pdf](https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04129/SN04129.pdf) (full report)

    The full report gives some of the conditions necessary for an EDMO on page 11. Probate is specifically an example of a situation which would prevent an EDMO being made.

    The local authority has to engage first and then get an EDMO from the tribunal.

    So, six months always seemed to me quite a reasonable time.

    Sadly, the power had lots of problems with it and lots of local authorities did not want to use them (one told me at the time “we would just use compulsory purchase”). Eric Pickles extended the time to two years empty, which makes them much less useful.

    I actually wrote a book about the Housing Act 2004, just to set out my credentials a bit :-).

  31. Good.

    Most of the problems in the UK are a result of the nonsense the Torygraph supported

  32. Good. Fuck assholes who leave properties derelict. It’s a blight on the local area as much as contributing to the housing crisis.

    Next up: sort the planning laws. Why is it acceptable to ruin an area by building some giant warehouse, but actual housing is always blocked.

  33. Labour has worked out that we need 1.5 million houses.

    Guess roughly how many houses are empty in this country at the moment.

    I feel like instead of building them in green belt as their new plan is we could just maybe find a way to force people to use the empty ones and this is a great start

  34. Won’t anyone think of the poor foreign investors and their empty properties!

  35. Good.

    You have Oligarchs and other wealthy assholes fae abroad buying homes in the UK(London in particular) so that they can use the UK address for business purposes, and whilst they’re raking in money by avoiding taxes or whatever these houses are sitting empty and ending up derelict.

    If the Government starts siezing these houses, then maybe they’ll finally be able to eases the pressure on the housing market a little, providing they use any profits made by selling these houses to build new houses.

  36. A plot to take back what we stole from the people by the party that is for the people!?!?!?!?!

    Good lord what a fucking goofy post. I love it. Atleast they arent pretending to be biased in anyway. I actually prefer it.

  37. To be clear, this is what the Tories promised they would do when they made squatting illegal.

    Did they do it. Did they fuck.

  39. >But property experts warned the move was an “attack” on foreign investors, and would drive down prices in the capital amid an already “challenging market”

    Oh no. How terrible. Please. don’t let that happen

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