London mayor targets ghost mansions and zombie flats [View all]

[octoberlib]

LONDON — They are not hard to spot, if you know where to look, especially at night — the floors of swanky new apartments, most of the windows dark, almost all the time.The zombie flats. Owned, but empty.

And on this cobbled mews in Chelsea? On that private walk in Kensington? No one home, either. There’s enough empty property here to be given a name in the British news media: the “ghost mansions” of “lights-out London,” the streets where it is alleged that seven in 10 addresses are second — or third or fourth — homes.The blight of conspicuous empty homeownership is a big story in London — and around the globe.




In Manhattan, the New Yorker magazine had a look at Census Bureau numbers, which revealed that in Midtown — from 49th to 70th streets, between Fifth and Park avenues — nearly 1 in 3 residences are unoccupied at least 10 months a year.

Newsweek estimated that in Paris, “one apartment in four sits empty most of the time.”In Jerusalem, the deputy mayor said the number of ghost flats is triple the official estimate, and bemoaned the impact on young families searching for a bit of living space.But how to stop or slow or tax the empty units is uncharted territory — including whether it is even possible or desirable.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/london-struggles-with-ghost-mansions-and-zombie-flats-the-empty-units-in-city-bereft-of-affordable-housing/2017/09/18/253d67fa-97c4-11e7-af6a-6555caaeb8dc_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_london-housing-400am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.46725a8a267d


London Mayor Sadiq Khan's proposal is to jack up taxes on them but experts doubt that will have any effect. . They should investigate the shell companies that own these properties for money laundering. That will produce better results.