Could city council force sale of derelict properties?

Cork City Council will write to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage James Browne TD to request legislation be passed to give local authorities the power to use compulsory sale orders (CSO) to bring derelict properties back into productive use.

The move was agreed at the latest full meeting of the council earlier this month.

A CSO would force the owners of property currently listed on the derelict sites register to put their properties up for public auction.

They would differ from compulsory purchase orders (CPO) in that the council would not directly purchase the property, but would instead simply mandate that it be sold at auction.

Two motions to that effect were brought to the council, from Green Party Cllr Dan Boyle and Independent Cllr Albert Deasy.

Cllr Boyle said the current system encourages property owners to maintain vacant and derelict properties “on the basis that the land values improve”.

“Our laws are seriously deficient in that this encouragement exists, and that vacant and derelict properties are in a sense encouraged to happen because our laws do not give a proper sense of responsibility to property owners,” he said.

There are currently 152 properties on the council’s Derelict Sites Register. At its January meeting this year, the council decided to publish an interactive GIS map of derelict properties in the city.

CSOs have been introduced by the Scottish Parliament for local authorities there.

In 2022, a report by the Think Tank for Action on Social Change (TASC) said Compulsory Sales Orders would be a useful tool for local authorities if it deems CPOs “too cumbersome” in a particular scenario.

It said land owners can often have an unrealistic impression of the value of their sites and properties, but that as a CSO uses an auction process, this will correct for “market failure”.

However, it said they should be used as a part of a broader consultative process with landowners, “such that their use was a last resort”.

This article was produced with the support of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme funded by Coimisiún na Meán.