A house owner has exploited a loophole that ensures he doesn’t have to pay for repairs to a dilapidated house.
Mark Kermode, who is the chairman of the Manx nationalist party Mec Vannin, foiled legal action against KBS Ltd by Douglas Council by selling the house, on Princes Street, to a family member for £1.
Now for the fifth time in seven years, Douglas Council has issued a s24 notice on the owners of 33 Princes Street, Douglas, KBS Ltd, which has Mr Kermode as sole director.
An Examiner investigation has uncovered that the council had to cease legal action last year when KBS Ltd sold the property to a member of Mr Kermode’s family for £1, only to buy it back again less than three months later.
The council issued a new s24 notice in January with a period of two months expiring at the end of March. If the required works were not completed by the owner then further measures would be taken.
The council’s environment and regeneration department confirmed to the Examiner that now this deadline had expired, the council is ’intending to remove the detriment as specified in the Section 24 Notice by undertaking the works itself and will seek to recover costs from the property owner’.
A council meeting agenda also revealed that recent changes to ownership of the property halted progress of the notice issued in 2017. The council noted that the sale was ’within the same family’ and it was unsure as to how this affected the legality of the s24 notice.
This relates to the sale of 33 Princes Street, which occurred twice in 2017 for the total sum of £2.
Documents obtained by the Examiner from the deed registry show that KBS Ltd sold the property to Kerry Katrina Singleton for £1 on September 8, 2017 before buying the property back again, also for £1 on November 28, 2017, despite the house being valued at £70,000.
Both documents show Mr Kermode as the signatory for KBS Ltd. The council said this prevented it from being able to continue with the 2017 issued s24.
The council agenda stated that the dilapidation enforcement officer had searched legislation and the legal advice of advocates was also sought and neither could provide a definitive answer as to how to continue other than there was no precedent and would need testing in court.
One councillor who didn’t wish to be identified told the Examiner: ’We hope to have a way forward in the very near future.
’This is a long-running problem for us, even more so for the neighbours and the people who live opposite and have to look at this every day.’
Isle of Man Newspapers has detailed this property in the past.
Mr Kermode previously represented KBS Ltd before magistrates when the company was fined £400 and £400 costs in December 2014 for failing to comply with the order to complete repairs.
Earlier that year, we had reported how neighbours viewed the property as a 30-year blight and, due to the state of the building, including holes in the roof, damp had began to affect the houses either side of the terrace.
Minutes from Douglas Council in November 2013 confirmed that by that point, the council had spent about £8,500 on dealing with the property.
A s24 notice refers to Section 24 of The Building Control Act 1991, which allows authorities to act ’if it appears to a local authority that a building or structure in its district is by reason of its ruinous, dilapidated or neglected condition or unfinished state detrimental to the amenities of the neighbourhood’.
Mr Kermode was contacted by the Examiner to comment. He denied personally owning 33 Princes Street, stating it is in company (KBS Ltd) ownership, but declined to comment further.