House owner off the grid!!

supa34

A strange one for you guys.

I have purchased a terrace house recently on a busy main road where the neighboring house is in a really bad condition. The trees are over grown, the windows rotting etc. Rest of the street looks perfect and well kept.

The tenant living in there is complaining about the pigeon infestation in that house. They seem to flying in and out of the broken bedroom window and roof.

When I purchased it I did ask council if they knew who owned it as it's been empty for over 15 years and the hedges were overgrown.
The response was due to date protection they can't tell me the owners but they are trying to get the house back on the market but haven't been able to find the owner. Land registry has the owner living at that address.

Can someone really go off the grid? I miss one bill and the council threaten to break door down and get a bailiffs in but someone has missed 15 years of council tax, 15 years of gas and electricity standing charge, and 15 years of water bill. Can't they reposes and sell it and take what's owed to them?

Has anyone come across a situation like this?

GaleSF63

AFF8879 wrote: »

You said the property was tenanted, so presumably that person is paying the bills?

I think the tenant is in supa34's house?

EachPenny

supa34 wrote: »

Has anyone come across a situation like this?

Yes, but it is less common than it used to be because people are more inclined to get involved and ask the authorities to do something about it. Councils are also under pressure to get empty homes back into use and have specific powers to take properties over if the owner appears to have gone awol.

The back story often involves someone with mental health issues.

supa34 wrote: »

Can someone really go off the grid? I miss one bill and the council threaten to break door down and get a bailiffs in but someone has missed 15 years of council tax, 15 years of gas and electricity standing charge, and 15 years of water bill. Can't they reposes and sell it and take what's owed to them?

The utilities have probably been disconnected - for safety reasons, if not for non-payment of bills. The gas and electricity meters would have needed inspection and/or replacement and if the owner made no contact then ultimately the utility company would have applied for a warrant to gain access and (you have to hope) left the property safely disconnected.

With Council Tax (in England, not sure about elsewhere) the council can eventually apply for a Charging Order (I think when the debt exceeds £1000) and that means when the property is sold the council will be paid out of the proceeds. More generally placing a charge on a property used to be a relatively common way for a council to recover costs from owners for carrying out work to make properties safe, or other essential work.

G_M

Unless it is impacting directly on you (rats breeding and coming into your property? Trees falling down into your garden?), it's not really any of your business.


Owner might have died, no will, no obvious descendants to inherit.
Owner might be overseas and not know or care about the property.
All sorts of reasons why properties are left vacant.


As for the bills, again, who knows? Water, gas, electicity may be cut off. Council Tax may be being paid by direct debit.



You can report it to EnvironmentalHealth (see my comment above) if there's a H&S issue.
Some local authorities have 'empty homes' policies - report there.

lisyloo

It is the landlords issue if the tenant is complaining.
It’s not clear what the issue with the pigeons is ??

If it’s noise then the local authority can be asked to check if it’s a statutory nuisance if it’s audible from a habitable room e.g. bedroom.
They can then serve a noise abatement order.
This sometimes gets people moving.
If the owner cannot be contacted then they can get a locksmith out and deal with the issue and eventually charge the owner (or estate).

It might be the tenant that has to complain to the authorities.

Try statutory nuisance,

getmore4less

what effort have you made other than ask the council.

Check the land reg and then a bit of google and BV list may uncover Something.

A bit of local research anyone been living in a house nearby...

martindow

Could be worth asking in local corner shops or pubs to see if anybody knows. But, as others have said, if the owner is dead/ has mental health issues/ lives abroad/ doesn't care it will not get you much further.


You could try involving local councillors using the line of the house becoming dangerous and how abandoned houses should be brought back into use to try to encourage the LA to take it over.

Silvertabby

I take it that someone has checked to see that the owner (or, rather, his remains) isn't actually still in the house?

supa34

The tenants are living in the house I have purchased.

They are complaining about the pigeon, mainly the cooing noise they make all night.

Asking the neighbours is tricky as the tenant mentioned that they have tried to take possession of it, mentioned a term that I can't remember, claiming they have looked after property for 10 years
But due to the overgrown conifer that makes it impossible to enter the house plus hole in roof and the birds meant it wasn't looked after and they didn't get it.

I got in touch with council empty home department and they knew about it but can't seem to get it back on market and repaired.

I originally went to them as I was going to do some work on the party wall and wanted to give notification.

I had a look at land registry and ow er is registered to same address.

Theu could be in care but I would have assumed that care home would have sold the house to fine all these years of treatment is still alive.

If not alive then how long does it stay unclaimed for?

getmore4less

Care home may not even know they own it.

If you have a name for the legal owner you can start some research.

Are you attached to it in anyway?
(physical building wise like a semi).

neighbours messed up their claim,
Often best to get the place occupied and maintained rather then left to rot.

Nebulous2

I once stayed overnight with a friend and he took me for a walk around his village. He pointed out a cottage that was quite overgrown and derelict. He had been friendly with the owner who died. The heir was a distant relative who lived a long way away. Initially the new owner was quite enthusiastic and even paid my friend a modest sum to look after the cottage in his absence. Then there was a serious leak from a pipe in the loft and a lot of the ceilings collapsed. The owner paid to get all the utilities cut-off, never fixed the damage, stopped paying my friend and to the best of his knowledge hadn't visited in over 10 years. The house was simply locked and left. He had no idea if the council tax was being paid.

So it happens.