Council tax bills doubled, tripled and even QUADRUPLED for almost 700 Sunderland homes left sitting empty

A total of 60 of these properties have been empty for “more than 10 years”, according to bosses at Sunderland City Council.

City chiefs have had the power to increase charges on properties which have been “unoccupied and substantially unfurnished” for a long period of time since 2013, through an “empty homes premium”.

In 2019, further powers handed to Wearside to strengthen the incentives for owners to bring homes back into use and target long-term empty properties.

In Sunderland, properties left empty and unfurnished for at least two years face a 100% premium on their council tax - doubling the bill.

This rises to 200% for properties that have been vacant for between five – ten years and up to 300% for those empty for a decade.

As of April 1, 2022, a total of 677 properties across the city face extra charges, up from 579 last year.

A total of 60 of the properties had been empty for 10 years or more, compared to 61 last year.

Paul Wilson, the city council’s head of commercial finance, said: “When we first introduced this in 2019/20, there were 503 properties that were subject to the premium.

“As of the time of writing this report, 288 of those have become occupied, so are no longer in the premium, 215 of them are still paying a premium.

“There’s been a slight increase, they may not be the same properties, new properties may be in categories and other ones have come out because they’ve been used.”

Dianne Snowdon, city councillor for Washington Central, praised the strategies in place to tackle the issue in Wearside, as well as ongoing work with landlords to help bring empty homes back on to the market and into use.

Speaking at the local authority’s Scrutiny Co-ordinating Committee earlier this month, she said: “To think that there’s 60 properties in our city that could have been empty for ten years plus, it’s astounding really that those properties have been empty that length of time.”

However, despite the cash boost from the vacancy penalties, city council bosses stressed that despite the extra income, they would rather the properties be occupied.

Jon Ritchie, the city council’s executive director of corporate services, said: “The council would always rather the properties were populated, the premium is there as an incentive to bring them back where people are just sitting on the investment.

“We’d always rather get to no council tax premium because the properties are populated with people who want to be there and are model citizens rather than the houses becoming problematic.”

As well as hitting landlords in the pocket, the council also runs an Empty Properties team, which can support owners to secure finance for repairs and other upgrades to properties, in some cases selling the property to the council under its ‘Purchase and Repair’ programme.

Cllr Michael Hartnack said: “I applaud what the council are doing in relation to charging premium rates for those houses that stand empty, I think that’s a good thing.”