Legal action taken after putrid and empty house found with trees growing inside

A council has taken legal action against a homeowner who let an empty house go to rack and ruin, with trees growing inside.

Neighbours complained about ferns and vegetation sprouting within the abandoned, neglected house in Gloucestershire, in the UK, encroaching on their own homes. Photos taken by council inspectors show the putrid property is falling in on itself.

The Stroud District Council went to court to claim the home after unsuccessful attempts to get the owner to address the florid problem.

“Extensive efforts were made to contact the owner and encourage them to bring the property back into use,” council said in a statement. “Despite numerous attempts to engage with the owner, officers successfully applied for a County Court order to force the sale of the house.

“The house, which requires extensive renovations to make it habitable, has been sold by auction. The council’s costs will be taken from the proceeds.”

To combat the housing shortage in the district, the council is offering interest-free loans of up to $29,000 for owners of empty, unloved properties to embark on the necessary repairs, as long as they are then offered as affordable rentals.

Homelessness is on the up in rural England, a charity report found, making disused and uncared for homes a pet hate of local authorities. It will take 89 years to clear a construction backlog to build the number of houses required to meet need, the report, released in November 2023, found.

The UK is battling a lack of housing akin to the crisis in Australia, and the Stroud council took the measure of tweeting images of the decrepit, jungle-like house.

Environmental health officers were called in by neighbours to look at the house, which had been “long abandoned”, the council said in the March 9 tweet thread, on platform X (formerly Twitter).

“We’re talking action on empty homes by bringing this abandoned property back into use,” the council wrote.

“When officers inspected the property they found the interior was so damp that moisture-loving ferns were flourishing inside, and the structure was badly damaged by years of neglect.”

Residents in the area can report abandoned properties to council, which also tweeted that advice is available on how to bring houses back to habitable condition.

Chair of the council’s Housing Committee, Councilor Mattie Ross, said in a statement: “There is a shortage of housing in the district, so we will do all we can to encourage empty homes to be brought back into use.

“We offer homeowners an interest free Empty Homes Loan of up to £15,000 ($AU29,060) for repairs and refurbishment to properties that have been empty for more than 12 months if they are then used for affordable rented housing.”

Councilor Lucas Schoemaker said that long-term empty homes are a “blight” that draw anti-social behaviour to neighbourhoods.

England charity CPRE identified record house prices, stagnating wages, enormous waiting lists for social housing and the trend of short-term accommodation pushing people out of their communities, threatening towns’ survival and causing chronic rates of homelessness.

“There is an extreme disparity between rural house prices, which are higher than those in other parts of the country, and rural wages, which are much lower,” the charity’s report said.