More and more councils are looking into a significant untapped council tax resource in their list of empties – properties benefiting from council tax exemptions when they shouldn’t be. A great example is exemption “F”. There’s a three-limb test for…
Picture the scene: a potentially highly desirable Edwardian three-bed terraced house, on a leafy commuter-friendly road littered with German and Swedish SUVs. Outward appearances suggested the owner was neither an enthusiastic gardener, nor a committed…
At first sight, this looked like a bit of a headscratcher. An Empty Homes Officer in the West Country had been struggling with a property which seemed to be Stuck In Probate Hell. She buzzed me for a no-obligation chat about it and subsequently decided to…
Some time ago, an Empty Homes Officer rang me for a chat regarding a particular empty property. As we’ll see, this was a far-sighted decision with a positive outcome and considerable social benefits for her community. The property owner had died and, although…
When Councils ask us for help BEHBIU* we’re never entirely sure, until we get under the bonnet, what we’re going to be doing. Will it be as straightforward as tracing the absent owner of an empty home to a new address or providing our local authority client…
I’ve been working with Local Authorities generally and Empty Homes Officers in particular for years now and it remains true that each has their own approach to their common objective of BEHBIU*. Councils differ: some EHOs have no difficulty accessing Council…
It can be risky to take things completely at face value - they’re not always as they seem. Take the case we’ve just dealt with for an EHO at a council in the Home Counties. The EHO was relatively new in post and on her list was three-years-empty 23 The Limes.…
I was slightly aghast at the latest empty homes figures. Even disregarding second homes, unsold new-builds, the regular ebb and flow of straightforward CT exemption “F” cases and so on, there’s still a heck of a lot.We’ve recently taken on a case that was a…
One of our case managers buzzed me the other day with some news of an Empty Home we’re helping to Bring Back Into Use. An Empty Homes Officer at a Local Authority had been getting nowhere trying to engage with the owners and referred it to us - could we help…
How is everybody doing?Prime Ministers come and go, the seasons change and so does the weather. One constant seems to be that a great many Homes remain Empty and EHOs sometimes need more information than they have in order to bring them Back Into Use - often…
