June

2006
THE EMPTY HOMES AGENCY
Monthly News Bulletin

Empty Homes Agency, 195 – 197 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5NE
Tel: 020 7828 6288 Email: shashi@emptyhomes.com
Statements in this newsletter are for guidance only and the Empty Homes Agency will not accept
liability for losses resulting from reliance on them. Professional advice should always be obtained.
Table of Contents

1 A Word….
2 London Week Of Action 2006 - 5th - 9th June 2006
3 Shelter’s NEW Housing Act website
4 Smartmove Project – New Crisis Publication
Announcement
5
6 Empty Homes Seminars
7 VAT Trouble
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9 Events
10 Resources
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1
A Word…
Jonathan Ellis, Chief Executive
Dear All,

Since our last bulletin we have been busy following up on the letters that
we sent to the Regional Housing Boards. As you may remember from
my piece last month, we were keen to help them as they develop their
housing strategies to include the potential of empty property.

The Government, in its response to the Barker Review of Housing

Supply, stated clearly in paragraphs 2.21-2.23 that empty property could
make a contribution to meeting new housing supply. As we have said
many times before – empty homes are not the whole answer to the
housing crisis but they must be part of the answer.

We have now met with Regional Housing Board representatives in

Yorkshire and the Humber, South East and South West, and we are
following up with meeting the remaining Boards over the coming
months. We have had a very positive response, and we will be
continuing to talk to them over the months ahead. It is fascinating now,
in the wake of the Housing Act 2004 and the Government response to
the Barker Review, to see empty homes becoming an integral part of
housing policy in this country.

The issue of the council tax discount on empty property is also

beginning to take off. As you may recall, from 2004 local authorities
have had the right to abolish the discount on council tax for empty
property. Over 50% of local authorities have used this discretion, and
just last year this abolition raised £72 million in additional council tax
payments.

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We have long argued that this money should be kept by local authorities
to invest in their empty property work. Just think what £72 million could
do to bring empty homes back into use? We will continue to push for
this money to be retained by local authorities for their vital work on
empty homes.

We have also been invited to speak to the meeting of the all the council
leaders in Hampshire and Isle of Wight. This invitation is yet another
sign of the growing political interest in empty homes – long may this
continue!

And finally we are launching our new project – ‘Recycling London’s

Empty Homes’ – during London Week of Action on Empty Homes in
June. This is an exciting initiative and part of our attempt to link the
housing and environmental sectors. Not only do we want to bring empty
homes back into use, we want to do it in the most sustainable way
possible. Watch this space and our website for more information!

With all best wishes

Jonathan Ellis
Chief Executive
Empty Homes Agency
Tel: 020 7963 6883
Email: jonathan.ellis@emptyhomes.com

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London Week Of Action 2006 -

5th - 9th June 2006

Launch of New Project – RLEH – Recycling London’s Empty

Homes

The London week Of Action 2006 is being kicked off by the launch of a new
project run by the Empty Homes Agency

Recycling London’s Empty Homes is a major new online resource to help bring
the capital’s empty homes back into use the environmentally friendly way. The
new RLEH project will provide free, impartial advice to owners looking to carry
out works on their property and fills a major gap in the available provision
within the housing sector.

This resource is aimed to stimulate landlords’ interests in creating more

environmentally friendly homes, addressing energy and water use, sustainably
sourced materials and eco products. Another key aspect of Recycling
London’s Empty Homes is that it will help to provide owners with the necessary
background knowledge to make informed decisions.

RLEH will provide a directory of environmentally friendly building suppliers and

practitioners as well as step-by-step guidance to choosing the right product,
including:

• Suppliers
• Grants

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• Product awareness
• Related links

Wayne Hemingway welcomed the new resource as an important tool for

achieving London’s Sustainable City Status. “Recycling London’s Empty
Homes is potentially a very useful source of information for the public. It seems
crazy that when there is a genuine shortage of affordable homes there are still
so many that are left empty and unloved. Bringing these homes back into use
and doing it in an environmentally sound way must be sensible”

Desmond Kilroy of the Empty Homes Agency said: “We are delighted to be
developing this resource to bring environmentally sustainable refurbishment of
existing buildings further into the mainstream. In that it is aimed at owners of
property rather than architects and builders, it is the single biggest on-the-
ground-step to date towards addressing the environmental performance of the
UK’s existing housing stock. Existing stock has been identified as difficult to
reach for various reasons. We think we are uniquely placed with our regular
contact with empty property owners to encourage them to think about the
sustainable re-use of their property. The addition of this resource should help
owners carrying out necessary works choose environmentally friendly options
which might otherwise not be considered.“

The project was supported by some initial start-up funding from the GLA
and the Agency is now seeking ongoing funding to develop and market
the project.

For all the details of what is happening for the LWOA please visit our
website:

http://www.emptyhomes.com

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For further details please contact:
Desmond Kilroy
Empty Homes Agency
195-197 Victoria Street
London
SW1E 5NE
T: 020 7963 6886/7
E: desmond.kilroy@emptyhomes.com

Shelter's NEW
Housing Act
website
Last month saw the introduction of major changes for tenants of
privately rented housing. Councils now hold powers to bring empty
properties back into use, alongside this, all shared houses above a

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certain size must be licensed and all home inspections will use a new
risk-based system of assessment.

At present the private rented sector presents a number of challenges.

Shelter continues to see too many cases of people being made
homeless through eviction, harassment and rent arrears in the privately
rented housing. The hope is that the Housing Act 2004 will bring about
some long-overdue changes and propel the worst landlords into
improving their practice.

Although these new laws affect the whole of England they will be
implemented by individual councils on a local level. This should enable
officials to be responsive to local needs, for example, by charging
appropriate levels of fees for licenses.

However, there’s a risk of inconsistency as local officials use their

judgment to interpret the new laws: It’s not difficult to imagine a landlord
with properties in more than one area contesting a decision made by
one local council to refuse a license, where s/he has been granted a
license in a neighbouring authority.

This is an exciting time. The coming months will see relevant case law
being established and it is essential that we share our experience to
ensure that these changes bring about real benefits to private tenants.
The new Shelter online discussion forums will help us do exactly that:
The discussions present an opportunity for housing professionals to
cross council boundaries and share experiences, promoting pockets of
good practice in different regions and highlighting inconsistencies.

So who can use the forums? Anyone.

And how can you join up? It’s very simple- it takes two minutes: you
register, giving your name, email address and password. Then select
the forum you want to join in, or start one of your own.

Find the forums on the new Housing Act webpages:

www.shelter.org.uk/housingact

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E M P T Y H O M E S A G E N C Y

For further details please contact:

Sarah Mitchell
Housing Act Implementation Manager
T:020 7505 4691
M:0790 374 47 31
F:020 7505 2167
E: sarah_mitchell@shelter.org.uk
www.shelter.org.uk

S m a r t m ove
Project – New
Crisis Publication
Announcement
Following the completion of the Crisis SmartMove Regional
Development Programme, Crisis commissioned Research and
Information Services to write an evaluation of the initiative. I am

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pleased to annouce that this Evaluation is complete and can be found

on the Crisis website at :

http://www.crisis.org.uk/page.builder/services_under_smartmove.html

SmartMove works on a franchise model with Crisis providing

accreditation and good practice guidance to a UK-wide network of local
organisations. Many of them were initially funded by Crisis with three
year start-up funding. The schemes receive continuing support form
Crisis and in return are required to achieve agreed quality standards
and performance outcomes.

In September 2002 Crisis launched the SmartMove Regional

Development Programme, which funded five major partners with up to
£100,000 a year each fro three years, to operate a scheme and to work
with Crisis to develop the SmartMove model. These schemes are
known as Regional Development Partners (RDPs) and were based in
Barnsley, Exeter, Calderdale, North Cornwall and Worcester. The aim
was that they would act as regional hubs, piloting new developments
and offering support to other schemes as new initiatives were
developed.

Copies of the Evaluation can also be requested from Jessica Layton,

on tel: 020 7426 3862 or by post at Crisis, 66 Commercial Street,
London, E1 6LT

For further details please contact:

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5
Ms Bryony Duncan
Research Co-ordinator
(maternity cover), Crisis
T: 020 7426 3878
F: 020 7426 3858

E: bryony.duncan@crisis.org.uk
E: policy@crisis.org.uk
Crisis, 66 Commercial Street, London E1 6LT
Website: http://www.crisis.org.uk

Empty Homes
Seminars
I am pleased to be able to announce details of the forthcoming joint
Empty Homes Agency and IDEA empty property seminars. There will be
four regional events in July and every local authority will be allocated
two free places. We have a fantastic line up of speakers including
Brendan Nevin Director of housing at Ecotec and the brains behind the
market renewal pathfinders, Dave Stott Head of Private Sector
Operations at Manchester City Council, and Alan Collet senior partner
at Alsop auctioneers.

 Birmingham Tuesday 4th July

 Bristol Wednesday 12th July
 London Tuesday 18th July

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 Leeds Wednesday 19th July

These seminars are part of the DCLG’s housing act implementation

programme and designed to help local authorities make best use of
Empty Dwellings Management Orders. We felt quite strongly that a days
lecture on how EDMOs work was not the best way of achieving this. So
instead there will be two sets of written guidance. The DCLG’s own
guidance on use of EDMOs, and a joint Empty Homes Agency IDEA
booklet “ A Cure for Empty Homes” that will cover all the approaches to
getting empty homes back into use that local authorities might take. The
seminars support the publication of these sets of guidance and give the
opportunity to hear from leading people in the field how local authorities
can grasp the opportunity that new legislation provides to get more
empty homes back into use.

Bookings for the events are being organised by IDeA not the Empty
Homes Agency. Over the next week they will be contacting every local
authority in England and Wales providing more information including
agendas, and offering two free places to one of the events. Their
contact in each local authority will be the one they used for other IDeA
events in the Housing Act Implementation programme. Booking will be
on-line at www.idea-knowledge.gov.uk

The booking facility is not yet enabled but you might want to keep an
eye out on their website over the next week or so. The letter will ask
local authorities to give priority to empty property practioners.

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E M P T Y H O M E S A G E N C Y

For further details please contact:

David Ireland
Local Government/Policy Adviser
Empty Homes Agency
T: 020 7963 6884
F: 020 7828 6288
E: david.Ireland@emptyhomes.com

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E M P T Y H O M E S A G E N C Y

VAT Tr o u b l e

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I recently had a troubling call from North Wales. The caller had just
completed the restoration of a derelict cottage. It had been empty for
seven years. As is his right, and as we have been advocating he put in
a claim to the local Customs and Excise office to reclaim his VAT under
the VAT refund scheme.

The general and rather strange rule on VAT on restorations is that all
building costs (materials and labour) are liable for VAT at 17.5%. New
build properties however, are zero-rated.
This gives a perverse incentive to build new houses when restoring
existing ones may make more sense. The VAT rules on empty homes
were changed in 2000 to try to overcome this. They partly succeeded.
Put simply restoration of homes that have been empty for less than 3
years VAT is charged at the full 17.5%. Homes empty for between 3
and 10 years VAT charges are 5% and for homes empty for more than
10 years VAT is zero-rated. Details are set out in HM Customs and
Excise Notice 708

My Welsh caller had carried out all the work himself and so had incurred
no labour costs his claim was for 12.5% of the material costs (17.5% -
5%). To his and my surprise Customs and Excise said that he was a
DIY builder and could only claim under the DIY builders and converters
scheme. This scheme is essentially there to enable self-builders to be
able to reclaim VAT for new build. Details are set out under Notice 719.
The notice makes no mention of properties empty for between 3 and 10
years and so my caller’s claim was rejected.

This case may have been a one-off or a mistake. I sincerely hope so.
Lots of homes have been empty for between 3 and 10 years and there
are many budding DIYers out there who are trying to rescue them. They
should be given every encouragement we can give them.

For further details please contact:

David Ireland
Local Government/Policy Adviser
Empty Homes Agency
T: 020 7963 6884
F: 020 7828 6288

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E:
david.ireland@em
ptyhomes.com

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E ve n t s

Revive - Sustainable Refurb & Restoration.

One Great George Street, London.

Wednesday 7th June 2006

For more information click on the link below:

http://www.emptyhomes.com/news/event/events.html

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8
London Week Of Action – Dates: 5th – 9th June 2006

For more information click on the link below:

http://www.emptyhomes.com/publicrelations/lwoa.htm

National Week Of Action - Dates: 23rd – 27th October 2006

For more information click on the link below:

http://www.emptyhomes.com/publicrelations/nwoa.htm

* * * * * * * * * * * * *
For more info please look at our website:
http://www.emptyhomes.com/eventspages/events.htm

Resour ces

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Announcement:

The Empty Homes Agency website has been revamped, please

visit:

http://www.emptyhomes.com

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