Advice on living beside a Derelict Property

Tiddles2222

I moved here 18 years ago. It is a terrace house and the house next door had what I thought were renovations going on. I soon realised the house was being dismantled brick by brick! The Owner absconded and after a decade of pleading from us the local council put a C.P.O. on it and sold it. They said they would sell to a family unit.

We are now here 6 years later and the new owner has not done anything with it. It seems the original enthusiasm in securing the house has waned and I cannot understand why they don't sell it. They do have planning permission but have not done anything. They have not introduced themselves nor ever visit the property . The local council is again threatening to put it on The Derelict Sites register. A slow process.

The house is in a very bad state at this stage causing damp and heat loss for the 2 adjacent houses and unnecessary expense. The garden front and back is a wilderness encroaching on either side and is full of rats and brambles. There is dumping going on there as they have not secured the site.

People talk about the unsightliness of Derelict buildings but there is another element not much spoken about and that is the stress suffered by the people living in proximity to them. Both I and the person living on the other side have had this building consume 20 years of our lives and we are both suffering from bad health as a result of the stress. I mean seriously bad health.

Can anyone advise us what to do? We have been the route of Local Councillors and cant really afford to engage a solicitor.

Also, I hear the Government is considering a 20/30k grant to upgrade existing Derelict buildings. If the owner of this building gets that after what they have inflicted on us, I would be disgusted.

Many thanks in advance for any advice.

Shapey Fiend

We have the highest land prices with the lowest population density in europe. Hoarding sites and leaving them derelict is far more financially viable than developing them with current day construction costs and there's no tax disincentive for doing so.