Since local authorities were given the power to take over and rent out properties which had been empty for at least six months in June 2006, only 11 Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMOs) have been issued according to the Residential Property Tribunal Service. The intention was to allow councils to enter abandoned and empty homes and rent them to tenants once renovated.
It is estimated that 280,000 properties have been unoccupied for at least six months but, speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Money Box, Shelter claimed that the number of properties brought back into the rental market would remain small unless the government acted.
Deputy director of policy and campaigns at Shelter, Caroline Davey, admitted that the practice was currently disjointed with local authorities unable to make any real inroads.
She said: “Local authorities say to us they simply do not have the money or the capacity to really pursue the empty homes strategy. They are not being given the dedicated funding by central government to do that.”
Junior Housing Minister, Iain Wright, told Money Box: “What we were always clear about is that this would be a power of last resort. The evidence on the ground says that it is working with the threat of a stick to beat home owners with.”
However, Wright claimed that there were no plans to give councils extra funding to help them take advantage of the EDMO legislation.
Brian Berry, director of external affairs at the Federation of Master Builders, said more needed to be done to tackle the housing shortage.
He commented: “Bringing empty buildings back into beneficial use, in both town and country is an essential part of sustainable development and improving people's quality of life. Government needs to work a lot harder to join up its housing, regeneration, environmental and fiscal policies. Cutting VAT would be an excellent start.”
