Empty promise

“It had been an eyesore for 10 years,” says David Ireland, private housing service manager at Hammersmith & Fulham council. He’s talking about an empty home the local authority had been trying to bring back into use for years.

“It had been very difficult to contact the owner because it’s an offshore company.

“But within a week of writing to the owner to say we had put the property on our new empty homes website, he was on the phone with his name and address, saying ‘let’s keep in touch’.

“I’m now hopeful the property might end up changing hands and being developed into a useful piece of housing. We got further in a week than we had in the 10 years before.”

The website, www.empro.co.uk, puts owners of empty homes directly in touch with potential buyers and developers who’ll get people living in them. It aims to cut the time spent by housing workers trying to persuade owners to sell or develop empty properties, by connecting them with potential purchasers at minimum effort to the owner.

Launched in July, the website is used by seven west London councils. So far, it has received 700 enquiries for its 53 advertised properties and three or four homes are close to being sold. If a two-year pilot results in a lot of sales, the site will be expanded across the UK, which could not only change the way councils approach problem empty homes but also provide a new bank of properties for registered social landlords to develop.

Ireland and Jon Sawyer of regeneration consultant Urban Catalyst came up with the idea for Empro in June 2003. With a steering group including the ODPM and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, they hired IT company Media Scope to do the technical work. This was funded with the help of a London Housing Board grant worth £345,000 over two years.

It works very simply: potential developers register for free and can browse properties by size, area or postcode. For each house there is a photo, with distinguishing features blurred out so it doesn’t attract squatters, a description of its size, details of how long it’s been empty, its approximate postcode and whether it is in a “disadvantaged area” where stamp duty relief applies.

If the developer is interested, they fill in an online form and an automatic email is generated to the relevant council. A council officer can then log into a secure section of the site to see details of the interest in each property and the contact details for developers – this instantly updates each time a new enquiry is made – and the council can contact the owner with the relevant contact details to follow up.

Within a week of writing to the owner to say we had put the empty home on our site, he was on the phone

David ireland, Hammersmith & fulham

This system means council teams have the freedom to go ahead and find potential buyers for a home without needing to first persuade the owner to put it on the market, because they can advertise properties without being specific as to where they are; and they’re not making any promises to developers that they may not be able to keep. Of course, they still need to identify owners of empty homes by the same methods as usual – typically by using the council tax register – but being able to go to the landlord with real evidence of potential buyers has meant a positive response so far.

Hammersmith & Fulham writes to the owner of every property that’s been empty for more than a year and asks whether it’s OK to put its property on the site. If the owner declines, the property is left off – but only one landlord has done this so far. If they don’t respond, another letter goes out telling them the property will be put on the site anyway.

Ireland says the early results are encouraging. “About 90% of people have said they want the information about the people who are interested in buying to be sent to them,” he says. “What’s interesting is that some people who were a little bit suspicious at first have since had enquiries – and it’s some of those that are now moving forward.”

Another advantage is the pool of potential developers that councils can make contact with: rather than approaching developers individually with propositions about specific properties in their borough, the developers actually seek the councils out.

Most people who have registered on the site so far are private developers, but they include housing associations and the first months also indicate that many individuals are also interested in buying and doing up properties. “The website has brought a lot more people in touch with our private homes team, so instead of dealing with a dozen or so stakeholders, suddenly we’ve got hundreds,” says Ireland.

How many of these homes will end up being developed and re-occupied, and how quickly, remains to be seen: Hammersmith & Fulham alone has 2000 properties that have been empty more than six months, and there are about 40,000 in total across London.

Sawyer admits it’s possible some owners who have shown an interest could simply be stalling the councils and have no intention of selling. But, he points out, if nothing does happen and a council moves from persuasion to enforcing a compulsory purchase order, it will have a much stronger case since it has exhausted all other options.

“If you go to court you could take the spreadsheet from the site with you and say, ‘the landlord knows this property has had this much interest’.” Not only are you making it as easy as possible for owners of empty properties to sell up, you are also making it much harder for them to refuse to part with the homes.