Tackling Hardcore Vacancy through Compulsory Sale Orders: Fid-Bau Portal

Tackling Hardcore Vacancy through Compulsory Sale Orders

Adams, David

Hardcore or semi‐permanent vacancy has been defined as land which has been vacant or derelict for more than nine years. Over a quarter of all brownfield land in England is believed to be hardcore vacant, while in Scotland, over 40% of the almost 11,000 hectares of all vacant and derelict land officially recorded in 2014 had been in that same condition for at least 23 years. Such vacancy has become a semi‐permanent feature of the urban landscape as much because of institutional barriers as economic or physical ones. Among the most problematic of these are unrealistic owner expectations of what the land is worth. To tackle hardcore vacancy, the chapter proposes the introduction of Compulsory Sale Orders (CSOs), under which any land idle for an undue length of time could be required to be sold by public auction. The chapter sets out how CSOs could be implemented, explores what they might achieve in practice, and considers some of the challenges likely to be involved in their introduction. It argues that CSOs offer an institutional solution to an institutional problem by reconstructing the rules of land and property markets to make them work more efficiently.