Elected Member Briefing - Update on Missing Shares Service

About this Briefing Note

Report by: Elaine Ritchie, Strategic Lead, Housing and Communities

Date: 4th June 2025

Subject: Update on Missing Shares Service

Purpose

Following approval from Housing and Social Wellbeing Committee on 19 June 2024 for extension of the provision of the Missing Shares Service for a further 3 years, the following information is provided as an update on the ongoing success of the service.

Briefing Information

Background

Since September 2021, the Missing Shares Service, under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006, with one officer and a fund of £200k, has provided support & advice to owners of shared buildings to enable communal repairs. As a last resort the service also provides a mechanism to pay a missing share for the minority of owners who are unwilling or unable to pay their share to progress any necessary works.

A summary of the action and costs to date are as follows:

• 243 enquiries received and actioned
• £450,000 of works completed where only advice & support has been needed.
• 22 Missing Shares applications received
• £1.2m of works completed following successful application with £113,000 paid in Missing Shares

In total £1.6 M of communal repair works have been facilitated by this service through the provision of essential advice and the arrangement of £113,000 paid in missing shares.

The support of this service has resulted in an improvement of the condition and safety of buildings across Perth & Kinross, including Perth, Blairgowrie, Crieff, Abernethy, Kinross, Scone and Milnathort, positively benefitting residents, businesses, and the wider public.

In the absence of this assistance there are clear examples of where residents would continue to live in conditions adversely affecting their health and where a lack of such intervention has or would lead to the evacuation of homes/properties and a reduction in available housing stock. Such action involves significant costs and resource to the residents and the various responsible services within PKC. For those vulnerable individuals requiring to pay a missing share, relevant safeguarding measures are implemented, for example people experiencing financial pressures can be referred to Welfare Rights or an agreed extension agreed to their payment plan.

The Missing Shares service is undoubtedly proving to be an efficient and successful mechanism to enable common repairs to be tackled. The data gathered around the typical repairs required through the service are now also being assessed to identify proactive awareness-raising opportunities to try and encourage home/business owners to tackle the source of their maintenance problems and therefore avoid deterioration of their properties and future costly repairs.

Due to the success of the service demand is rapidly increasing, primarily relating to large buildings of a similar age suffering significant defects such as water ingress and dampness. Such disrepair is often causing homes to become uninhabitable and requiring costly roof repairs/replacement. In this regard several applications are pending, involving costly works and missing shares required beyond the original funding allocation.

Work is underway, including benchmarking with other local authorities, to help identify ways to establish additional funding (on a recoverable basis) to support these pending and future applications as an investment in the local housing stock and reducing pressure on PKC services.