There is something profoundly unsettling about the Government’s latest assault on the apparently revolutionary concept that ‘a person might own a house and have the temerity to decide what they want to do with it.’ The sheer audacity of it!
The latest proposal is that Councils should be able to intervene with private properties that have been empty for as little as six months.
The government announced on 27 September 2026 that it intends to reduce the ‘qualifying period’ for an Empty Dwelling Management Order (EDMO) from two years to six months. How very considerate of them. Under an EDMO, the Council can take over the management of the property and organise a letting of it, to an unconnected third-party tenant (and keep the rent) for up to seven years, although importantly, ownership remains with the original owner.
So, this is not technically a ‘confiscation’ in the old-fashioned interpretation of this term but is faintly reminiscent of an example of one person borrowing the possession of another and in justification, saying, “I won’t cheat you; I’ll just owe you for life!”
NOT WORRISOME BUT TERRIFYING
Nevertheless, it is an extraordinary extension of the principle that the State may decide, in their wisdom, that your privately owned property, which you have paid good money for, is not being used in the manner that they ‘consider appropriate.’ That, as a principle should not be just worrisome, it should terrify all libertarians.
The Government’s feeble justification runs like this; Britain needs more housing and there are empty properties, supposedly serving no social purpose.
Some could be derelict, some abandoned, some perhaps even creating a nuisance and some simply have been left in obeyance awaiting a prolonged planning outcome.
I am not seriously arguing that a derelict building which serves to blight an entire street, should be immune from any form of correction, but there is a rather large leap between this and giving the power to a third-party ‘Joe Blogs from the Council’ who decides that the use of the said property should be given to an unconnected person (perhaps one of his best mates) because he thinks that this is the fair, moral, adjudication.
GOVERNMENT HAS ARSENAL OF WEAPONS
Let’s not forget, the Government itself already has a formidable arsenal of weapons at their fingertips.
They can impose substantial tax-premiums on empty properties; they have compulsory purchase orders in extreme and appropriate public-interest circumstances and they already possess powers to intervene in seriously problematic empty homes which are disturbing the environment.
However, the new announcement goes much further and after all, six months is not exactly a glacial timeframe.
Let’s put it this way, a property could be easily empty for that amount of time for a thousand, entirely innocent, reasons such as probate; divorce; a death in the family; renovation; a dispute between beneficiaries; an owner working abroad; a second home used intermittently; a property awaiting a prolonged planning consent or a house that the owner simply doesn’t want to rent for one reason or another.
We all know that there is a housing crisis for reasons that are numerous but when government authorities start lurching into breaching civil property rights, we know there is a problem at foot. Where does it end?
SILLY RAMPAGE
Forgive me if I go on a silly rampage but perhaps the State could eventually decide that underutilised cars ought to be made available to young, poorer families who may be car-less and perhaps even the spare bedroom of a private home could be registered with a local authority to house ‘illegal immigrants’. What about those ‘apples’ for you to consider?
Overtures of Stalin’s collectivisation (1929-1933); Fidel Castro’s nationalisation (1959-1968); Robert Mugabe’s land seizures (2000 onwards) and Nazi Germany’s confiscation of properties owned by Jews in the 1930s spring to mind!
I’m not sure that this is a good look for local authorities to join ‘The Axis of Evil’. These ugly historic vestiges of the past must never be repeated and the danger lies in allowing these new qualifications to be considered ‘normal’.
RIGHTS: SACROSANCT AND INVIOLATE
Britain has the most illustrious, enduring history of civility and tolerance. The basic principle of common law is that if you lawfully own something, it is yours and you may use it; sell it; rent it; lend it; improve it; leave it alone or within the law, do absolutely nothing with it. These rights must be sacrosanct and inviolate, otherwise anarchy reigns.
That does not mean property rights are absolute, they plainly are not, since planning law, taxation, compulsory purchase and environmental regulations already restrict what private owners may do with their own assets.
Indeed, the legal right to property is expressly qualified, see Article 1 of Protocol No 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, protects peaceful enjoyment of possessions, whilst also permitting the State to control the use of property in the general interest.
However, the qualification should be treated as a necessary exception, not an invitation and this distinction matters.
Nevertheless, there is an enormous difference between preventing a dangerous building from collapsing onto the pavement and telling someone that their perfectly habitable house which has been empty for six months, for some reason, has acquired a superior claim to it.
CLUES TO INCREASING HOUSING
If the government genuinely wants to increase the housing supply, surely there are less traumatic ways of achieving this.
I’ll give you a clue. Perhaps build more houses, build them faster, release government-owned land, reform planning, make residential development economically more viable and numerous to name but a few.
I am sure I share the view of most reasonable people by objecting strenuously to this over-arching desire of ‘Big Government’ interfering in the civil rights of ordinary law abiding, ‘G-d’ fearing people.
Enough is surely enough!
“The law may qualify property rights. But that does not mean the State should ever forget whose property it is.” John Locke 1632-1704.
