MPs have a month to stop their Brentford home from being repossessed
Hounslow Council has issued a letter to Ann and Alan Keen giving them one month to respond or their Brentford home will be repossessed.
A council spokesperson told ChiswickW4.com and BrentfordTW8.com, “We have contacted the Keens with regards to their property. As with all such cases they have one month to respond."
If the council does not get a satisfactory response from the Keens, it then has the power to issue an Empty Dwelling Management Order which would allow the council to take possession of the property and bring it back into use.
“When an empty property is reported to the council, a land registry search and council tax search is carried out to identify the owner. Letters are sent out - normally over a six-month period - urging the owner to contact the council,” the spokesperson added.
“After six months, if there has been no response and the property is unoccupied and in a poor state, a final letter is sent out giving seven days' notice before we begin the process for the appropriate enforcement.”
It is understood that the Keen’s property has been empty for the past seven months and that some of the windows have been boarded up.
The Council is yet to receive any response to their correspondence however, in a statement made earlier this week Ann Keen said, "It is categorically untrue to say that our home is an empty dwelling as made clear by the relevant legislation. It is currently in the process of being substantially renovated, entirely at our own expense."
Hounslow Council has told the couple "urgent action" is needed to explain why their main home in Brentford is unoccupied.
Ann Keen’s relationship with Hounslow Council has been strained for some time. In 2007, a motion to the Borough Council calling for no further invitations to Council events to be issued to both Ann and her husband and fellow MP Alan Keen was passed. At the time Labour councillors condemned the motion claiming that it was an attempt to "silence" the Keens protesting that the couple had merely "reserved their right" not to co-operate.
June 25, 2009