Revealed: Dudley Council buys one home for every four it sells to developers
Dudley Council is buying one house for every four it sells off to property developers because they are too expensive to repair.
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Under the authority’s ten-year management plan, any empty home which needs repairs costing more than £10,000 is disposed of as part of a job lot through property company Savills.
Recent sales came after a full survey of all council properties in 2023, also carried out by Savills, to update the council on the condition of its properties and whether they meet the requirements of the Decent Home Standard for social housing.
Councillor Ian Bevan, Dudley cabinet member for housing and communities, said: “Our ten-year housing asset management strategy, which was approved in 2019, sets out our vision for our housing stock, including the maintenance, disposal or requisition of stock.
“When a void home is considered costly to repair, an assessment is carried out to determine whether investment would help to create a sustainable tenancy for that property in the future.
“We have recently disposed of 132 homes and have a further 86 homes, two sheltered housing schemes and 15 void garage plots on the market.
“The homes are sold in groups via the framework to commercial investors to avoid them being brought and sold by private landlords who could choose to re-let them in a poor condition.
“To balance the disposal programme, we are looking to buy new homes with ring fenced Right to Buy receipts.
“Since December 2023, the council has bought 50 homes.”
He added fees paid by the council in relation to the sale of the homes were "in line with those charged across the sector".
At a meeting of the council’s Housing and Safer Communities Select Committee on August 1, Dudley’s director of housing and communities, Kathryn Jones, faced questions on why some homes are resold by developers immediately without any renovation.
Ms Jones told councillors a small number of properties were sold on to raise funds for the renovation of the remainder of the batch bought by an investor and those sales were monitored by the council's legal team.
She also said the process of buying new properties was ongoing and the purchase of newer properties meant paying higher prices however there would be future savings because those homes would not require maintenance for three to seven years.
