Vacant, and it's not pretty. So how do you deal with a blight on the neighbourhood?

Vacant, and it's not pretty. So how do you deal with a blight on the neighbourhood?

What can you do if you live near a property that's blighting your neighbourhood because it's been empty for a long period? I have lived next door to a house that's been empty since its elderly occupant moved into a residential care home some 18 months ago. Despite occasional, half-hearted attempts by the property's owners to keep the place in order while they seek a buyer, the place has jungle-like gardens, old scaffolding shoring up crumbling brickwork and a growing pile of rubbish outside.

Apart from concern about its unsightliness and the impact it may have on our house as it continues to deteriorate, it also seems wrong that a large house in an otherwise attractive part of west London should stand empty when so many people need a home.

While Britain is in the grip of a well-publicised crisis, with too few homes for the number of people who need them, the latest figures show nearly 280,000 privately owned homes in England have stood empty for more than six months.

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The government says 3m homes are needed by 2020 but its plans to meet that target appear focused primarily on construction. Campaigners argue the government should do more to encourage local authorities to get long-term empty homes back into use.

The Empty Homes Agency (EHA), a charity that works to highlight the problem in England and to promote solutions for their future use, advises anyone concerned about such a property to contact their local authority.

While there is no duty on councils to have an active strategy for bringing these homes back into use, some 200 councils do see it as a priority and have appointed officers within their private sector housing teams to work on the problem.

"First check that the council knows about the empty property and then ask what they are going to do about it," says EHA policy adviser Henry Oliver. "You'll find these officers are generally overstretched so you may need to bring a bit of pressure on them to take action."

Around 75% of private empty homes were bought by their current owner, according to the EHA. Many are in too poor a condition to rent out and their owners are either unable to afford to renovate them or haven't got around to it. In other cases people have bought properties as an investment and can afford to keep them empty, pending a sale when prices rise.

Councils have a variety of carrot-and-stick methods for encouraging private owners of these properties to get them back into use by selling or letting them. These include schemes in which the council, often working in partnership with a housing association, buys a temporary lease from the owner in order to house tenants from the housing association or council waiting list. The owner receives a guaranteed rent during the lease and gets their property back in good order at the end of it. Councils may also offer owners of dilapidated properties grants for refurbishment costs in exchange for a temporary lease.

Councils can also get tough where owners of long-empty homes cannot be persuaded to take action. Through a variety of legal moves, they can force owners to hand over management of the property for up to seven years or, ultimately, to sell up.

If you get little joy from council officials, the EHA suggests you write to your local councillor or MP explaining the empty property is reducing the value of surrounding homes. It will also be increasing fears of crime in the area and may attract fly-tipping. If you live next door to the property, include your fears of potential damage to your own property such as water ingress and vermin infestation, as well as the reduced security for your own home.

The EHA runs an empty property hotline and email service (020 7022 1870; shashi.ioannides@emptyhomes.com) offering free independent advice to owners on ways of putting their properties back into use and for members of the public to report empty properties in England.

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