Welsh Housing Awards winner 2023

Housing Team of the Year

Private sector empty homes pose a significant problem in the Caerphilly borough. Empty properties represent a wasted resource, an ongoing financial expense and, in many cases, a missed opportunity to provide much-needed affordable housing. They can also cause a blight to communities and become a magnet for anti-social behaviour.

Caerphilly County Borough Council’s newly created empty homes team was established to tackle the issue of increasing numbers of vacant properties. During its first 18 months of operation, and despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the team has developed a positive reputation locally and nationally, made a lasting difference in local communities and helped provide much needed homes.

Since its inception, the team has developed and implemented a wide range of methods to address the issue of empty homes, forming the basis of its empty homes strategy and action plan.

The team is creative in its approach, having launched a dedicated ‘Caerphilly No Use Empty’ website and advice pack to provide resources for owners of empty properties.

They are committed to making a difference and are tenacious in their approach to engaging and supporting homeowners to bring their properties back into use. The team motto is ‘doing nothing is not an option’ which means that they also sometimes must make difficult decisions and take enforcement action when all else fails.

As well as delivering quantifiable results, with the past year seeing the highest number of empty homes brought back into use in the Caerphilly borough ever, the team’s efforts have also helped transform lives. Including sourcing suitable properties to house those fleeing conflict in Ukraine and finding homes for those who would otherwise have found themselves homeless.

Empty property work can often be quite discreet and sometimes it takes a long time to see the benefits. The team’s patience and willingness to deal with more complex cases is already having a big impact, e.g. implementing the council’s first enforced sales policy.

• The team successfully brought 104 empty properties back into use last year - the highest annual figure to date for Caerphilly County Borough Council
• Successful completion of the council’s first two enforced sales
• Local launch and promotion of the National Empty Property Grant
• Team’s approach cited as best practice by Welsh government
• Reduced anti-social behaviour
• Helped to meet local housing needs.

The first property the team enforced the sale was a house in Caerphilly which had been sat empty since at least February 2015.

The property had been left to deteriorate with no liable person identified to care for the property following the death of the occupier in 2012. Social services involvement when the occupier was alive suggested that the property was owned by three siblings that had all passed away. Despite a substantial amount of time and effort, the authority failed to identify any next of kin who were willing to take on the probate of the property. The property was unregistered and, without a liable person, was exempt from council tax revenue.

The property sat empty for over seven years, deteriorating and causing annoyance to neighbouring properties. The property started to look unloved and unsightly, it also started to attract pests and was often subject to complaints by neighbours and the wider community. Without intervention from the authority, this property would have remained empty and left to further deteriorate.

The team reinvestigated ownership of the property to serve legal notices on the overgrown and waste-filled garden. They tried numerous ways, including paid advertising, to identify someone with an interest in the property, to no avail.

Much to local residents' delight the authority carried out works in default of the notice to clear the garden. This resulted in debt owing to the authority and opened the door for the team to enforce the sale to recover the money. Sale was completed in July and a new owner took over the property.

The financial benefit to the authority of the team’s work also shouldn’t be underestimated. For example, in the example over £55,000 debt to social services has been repaid through the sale funds, as well as all cost associated with the garden clearance and enforcing the sale of the property.

Council tax revenue of over £1.5 thousand per year will also be paid to the authority now there is a liable person. This is a significant amount of lost revenue over the eight years it’s been empty. In addition, the social economical benefit of the property being occupied by householders likely to be working in the local area and shopping at local shops are unquantifiable economic benefits of bringing this empty property back into use.