Lincolnshire Empty Homes Project

Background

The project was triggered by the opportunity to bid for private sector housing renewal funding from the Government Office in 2008-2009.

Originally five, to later become six district councils which includes: Boston Borough Council, East Lindsey District Council, City of Lincoln Council, North Kesteven District Council, South Holland District Council and West Lindsey District Council got together and conducted a preliminary study which established a need to address empty homes across the county, but that it was not feasible to act alone. It was hoped that this would contribute to reducing the waiting lists through increasing housing options.

At the beginning of the project most districts dealt individually with particularly problematic properties based on referrals. There was little collaborative working with respect to empty homes across the council which meant that the success rate was very low and the process was long. The housing market was buoyant and the general perception was that if an empty home came onto the market it would be bought by someone with the financial means to renovate the house themselves.

A steering group was created which consisted of representatives from the private sector, housing strategy staff from the six districts, and two dedicated officers were employed to oversee the project. There was slight split in the roles, one officer was responsible for conducting research on the issues of empty homes and developing the overall strategy with the other working on developing practical initiatives to bring empty homes back into use which included processes for Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO), enforced sales and empty dwelling management orders and more recently working to launch a social lettings agency.

Project

The project has the following objectives:

• Development of a joint umbrella strategy to bring empty homes back into use
• Share working practices of all the six districts
• Searching best practice further afield and utilising best practice from around the country
• Develop procedures to understand the process of compulsory purchase orders, empty dwelling management orders, enforced sales and identifying supporting partners
• Gain a better understanding of the empty homes issues specific to each area, and develop bespoke packages
• Maintain a database of empty homes and proactively engage with owners

To help promote the project a website was set up for all the councils providing information on the project and a referral system to report empty homes. This includes a list of services that the council could provide as well as a match making service for those wishing to sell. In addition information packs and leaflets were designed and sent out to owners and parish councils. Press releases were sent out and a number of radio interviews were given to spread the word of the project.

Landlord forums have also been used as a way of advertising and distributing information about the project and there are future plans to hold workshops for both potential purchasers and empty property owners to build better working relationships and establish services needed to make the project a success.

Before the project started some of the districts had started work on empty properties whilst others had no idea how many they had or what condition they were in. Initially the project looked at a sample of empties taking. As a starting point the top 100 longest term empty properties in each local authority and conducting a three tier letter system survey to establish why the properties were empty and what the barriers were for the owners to return them back to use.

More recently the Empty Homes Project Officers have started working directly with local parish councils to raise awareness. This includes the officer attending parish meetings; this provided the opportunity to develop a referral system so that the parishes work with the empty homes officer to share information. This is especially important in an area such as Lincolnshire where the local council boundaries are so large that it would be impossible for the empty homes officers to visit all the listed empty properties, thus the parish councils are able to undertake some of this investigatory work on the officer’s behalf which benefits all parties concerned. Other initiatives to visit empty properties have included getting bin men to check properties on their rounds and identify any further properties they find to be empty. Again this shows how joint working is being successful in delivering results and minimising duplication of work.

A survey of over 600 properties in the area was conducted, as a year into the project a further district joined the group, which helped the officers to understand some of the reasons and start to develop initiatives to tackle these. It became clear that a high proportion of owners required financial assistance to be able to undertake the repairs needed to get the property up to a rentable standard, and due to the slump in the housing market some owners could no longer afford to sell their properties either. Owners often asked the local council if they would take the property on and use it to house people on the waiting list, but unfortunately most of the councils could not provide this service in house nor had political will to invest in this service.

It became clear that there was a need for a Social Letting Agency (this will be launched Summer 2011). The project secured funding from a regional grant of some £25,000 to undertake research into the setting up of the Social Lettings Agency and have now identified a partner they are working with to provide this much needed service.

The empty homes officers will signpost owners of the empty properties to the social letting agency and in turn the home options team within each local authority will identify suitable tenants who could sustain a private sector tenancy and would have little chance of gaining social housing. The service will be a stepping stone between social housing and private sector lettings, offering more affordable rents with few upfront costs and longer more sustainable tenancies. It will also increase some of the housing standards in the private sector and work towards both affordable rents and affordable ongoing costs by identifying energy efficiency measures to help reduce the occupant’s bills.

The survey also highlighted the need to provide financial assistance, advice and guidance on owner’s options to help bring the properties back into use. This provided the basis for the development of the information packs including info on the VAT discounts, discounts through local builders’ merchants, letting and estate agents and auction houses.

The social letting agencies in the long-run will also help facilitate a link between housing need and high quality property management, Initially the social letting agencies will work across the central Lincolnshire Housing Market Area, as the councils who make up the project fall into different housing market areas, then spreading across the whole project area over time. (Central Lincolnshire Housing Market Area, Lincoln, North Kesteven West Lindsey. Costal HMA Boston, East Lindsey) it was realised that it is important to build the schemes around these areas to enable people to move within a similar housing area, rather than being isolated in one district. This also allows for issues around empty properties to feed in to wider strategic issues in the housing areas.

It also became apparent that there is a huge difference between the types of empties in the districts. There are the odd clustered groupings of housing but they are mostly quite sporadic. There are blocks of flats that have been empty, few small mid-terrace houses in the middle of Lincoln in a very dense populated area, there are large council tax band “G” properties, empty and dilapidated listed buildings, and very rural isolated empties. It is this variety that highlighted the importance of gaining a good knowledge of the empties in each district.

Impact

The first year of the project was spent on developing the strategy, procedures and building partnerships. Since then the majority of work has been done on bringing empty homes back into use, through advice, information and supporting the enforcement team, the project has brought back into use 90 empty homes in 2010-2011. In the first year it was soon realised that advice information can only help a certain percentage of people in the area highlighting that there is no one solution fits all.

At the moment empty homes are a high priority in the local investment plans, compared to two years ago when the project started. A lot of work has gone into making people realise the economic benefits of working on empty homes and as a result it has become a major priority to the councils.

At the start of the project some of the councils had previously worked on empty homes while others were just coming to grips with the issue. One of the biggest successes of the project was to bring everyone together to the same level; sharing the knowledge with each other; keeping everyone updated on the progress and then move things forward by building a joint action plan. This has also included taking forward the initiatives and supporting councils as not all councils had the financial resources to take the actions to work on empty properties.

CJ of Boston

CJ had been squatting in Boston for over 13 years including in an old abandoned ambulance, a fire damaged 4 story listed building and more recently a pair of mid terrace properties on which a prohibition order had been placed.

The pair of terrace properties were originally a Victorian public house, which had been split into 4 residential properties. Number 20 had no stair case so a wall had been knocked out in 20 to use the stair case of 21 and then another wall knocked out to get back into 20, the stair case had been divided into two by a thin partition wall, resulting in a stair case on both side barely wide enough to walk up. Additionally the boiler for number 20 was also in number 21.

CJ was squatting in number 21 for almost a year and was evicted as the owners were doing the works to lift the prohibition notice served by Boston Borough Council. CJ then moved to number 20 next door, the officers involved in the empty property working group became aware and the issues were discussed. Police, Housing Enforcement Officer, and Empty Property Officer visited the property. CJ had furnished the property, hung pictures, purchased a TV licence and registered utilities in her name. The officers who visited informed her that is was illegal to occupy the property because of the prohibition notice, and that she would need to vacate. CJ asked how long we could give her to find somewhere new. She was distressed as she didn’t want to move and thought this would be the last time.

It was with this that discussions and negotiations with the owner and officers took place. CJ was provided with a tenancy, the landlord performed the works to lift the prohibition notice, CJ was supported to access housing benefit, open a bank account and to understand the terms of her tenancy.

CJ said “I was done squatting, it was too hard work. I want to stay properly in a property, getting a tenancy has helped me to feel more at home and safer”.

Next steps

Improving relationships and working with the registered social landlords by identifying a few pilots across the district and secure some funding for the project. This would give an opportunity to learn from the experience gained during the pilots and further build on the current procedure.

Develop schemes and idea on how to utilise any funding coming into the council, and demonstrate how this can be used in a value for money way with empty homes.

Lessons Learned

• Get support from elected members at an early stage. As this will help increase the profile of the project and in particular the portfolio holders.
• Constantly reinforce the advantages and monetary benefits of bringing empty properties into use and the benefits that can be seen across the whole council.
• Make sure that the senior management team is up-to-date and is aware of the progress. This comes in handy when competing for funds and other resources to deliver the project.
• Conduct extensive primary research to find out the scope of empty homes, the intentions of owners in the area and in particular the geographical spread to map the empty homes especially in rural area.
• Having an interactive GIS map will help understand the rural and urban divide but also is an efficient way of sharing information with stakeholders. For programs going forward an up-to-date GIS map would be a good starting point; instead of the current approach working on the top long-term empty house, as you can target areas of need instead of length of time empty.
• Ensure all the key partners are on board and understand the knock-on effects of empty homes.
• The length time empty does not always have a direct correlation with the condition of the house.
• For the day-to-day jobs getting the support from other departments within the Council is helpful in the long run as this help promote a collaborative working style and better sharing of knowledge and resources.
• Understand the different working practices of the council's.
• Getting different departments from the council to a meeting can be difficult, thus planning in advance and clearly outlining the roles, responsibilities and expectations from different individuals to will help organise meetings.
• Provide incentives and share workload and where appropriate to try to deal with queries on behalf of the stakeholders from across the council.
• Be proactive and network with other councils.
• Keep an open channel of communication.
• Where appropriate consult the parish councils as they have a wealth of information that directly helps tackle the empty homes issues, as well as a vested interest in improving the community.
• Having regular meetings with the group members helps share information and finds solutions to problems. In the long run this helps establish a two-way process in which everyone within the group can share problems, find solutions and plan a forward strategy.
• A comprehensive understanding of the IT and the data protection policy will help project officers manage time effectively, apply for database authorisation and access in advance.
• It is important to tackle both the longest empties and those only just over 6 months and look into the value for money, as the homes only just on the list can provide quick wins for a project.

Reference

Luke Taylor
Empty Homes Project Officer
Lincolnshire Empty Homes Project
T: 01529 308 297
W: lincsemptyhomes.org.uk
E: Luke_Taylor@n-kesteven.gov.uk

Sophie Coles
Empty Homes Project Officer
Lincolnshire Empty Homes Project
T: 01522 873795
E: sophie.coles@lincoln.gov.uk