The council cabinet will be asked at a meeting taking place next Tuesday in Appleby to approve powers that will allow the council to carry out forced sales of homes to recover unpaid debts.
Westmorland and Furness Council leadership will be asked to adopt the ‘enforced sales’ policy, targeting long-term ’empty and problematic’ residential properties by Greystoke ward councillor and Cabinet Member for Housing and Community Safety Cllr Derbyshire to implement the policy at its meeting on Tuesday, July 14, after it was recommended to do so by senior housing executives at the council.
The housing standards department said in a report that will be given to the cabinet at next weeks meeting, as well as returning the ’empty and problematic’ properties to occupation, the policy would:
“Improve the condition and appearance of housing and local neighbourhoods, encourage responsible property ownership and enable the recovery of debts incurred through statutory housing and environmental enforcement activity.”
The council hopes that the policy would reduce crime and improve wellbeing by ‘ensuring vacant properties are habitable’, contributing to ‘safer and more stable communities’.
The enforced sales will allow the council to sell privately-owned property ‘where there has been a failure to comply with a notice’ where the owner was required to carry out works to the property.
If the council were to carry out works in default on a house, for example, the costs incurred would then be a debt due to be paid by the owner.
But if the debt goes unpaid and is ‘registered appropriately’, the council ‘may’, at that point, be able to enforce the sale of the property to recover the debt.
Council officers said in the report that it would act as a ‘proactive deterrent’, encouraging property owners to maintain their assets and comply with statutory notices.
But they add that, should an owner fail to settle any outstanding debt, their property may be sold.
The report reads that the cases which would be prioritised under the legislation would be:
Long-term vacant properties or those in ‘serious disrepair’, causing a detrimental impact on the surrounding area
Where the council has undertaken statutory works in default
Where reasonable efforts to engage with the owner have failed
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