Gateshead Council spends over £500k on homes trashed by tenants
Gateshead councillors were left shocked today after learning the local authority has spent over £500,000 repairing homes damaged by previous tenants.
Hundreds of council homes throughout the 2024/25 financial year were returned to the local authority requiring repair, amounting to £578,000 worth of damage. Out of 1,132 homes seen by the council’s repair team, with 394 being seen to currently, 850 were left in a state requiring significant repair work by the council employees.
This also comes at a time when the average turnaround to repair an empty home and get it back onto the market now averages around 103 days, due to the complexity of the work sometimes required. The length of turnaround has also been affected by the level of renewal work, including new kitchens, roof work, and bathrooms.
Laura Atkinson, service manager for repairs and voids at Gateshead Council, said: “We have a process in place where we charge the customer back, so we can mark it on the system as a re-chargeable repair. It then goes to our rent and income team and they set up an account for that customer
“The issue we have is that it’s not classed as a priority debt, your rent comes before that, your council tax comes before that, housing benefit overpayment. If you have any other debts they will take priority for the council to regain that money.
“We record it as a figure and record of what we get back for the customer but what we manage to get back is very very low.”
Coun Dawn Welch added: “It’s shocking really. It will no doubt be a few but the many of good, decent, not just council tenants, but council tax payers in general are subsidising those who are maliciously damaging or not looking after council property.”
Councillors were informed that the number of “pre-termination inspections”, which occur before a tenant leaves a council property, has increased as a result of the cost of repairs. A debt incurred via deliberate damage by a tenant, councillors were told, is also kept on permanent record.
Some cash has been retrieved, according to council officers, from former council tenants who have then returned to Gateshead Council as their housing provider.