A SCANDAL-hit council has taken no action over essential repair notices served on 30,000 properties, some dating back as many as nine years, amid concerns the problem is skewing part of the country's richest housing market.
It is revealed in a report that Edinburgh City Council still has 3000 outstanding statutory notices for repairs to tenements and businesses in blocks in the wake of one of the biggest property fraud investigations in Scotland.
The notices, as legal documents, have been cited as being directly responsible for home sales falling through, but the impact on the property market has only now become apparent.
The council is being deluged by calls for information on repair costs from 300 conveyancing solicitors each week as "a direct result of the number of statutory notices across the city and the significant impact they have in relation to property conveyancing", it has admitted.
The outstanding notices that label a property for repair were served between 1995 and 2012.
Under the controversial scheme the council took on work that owners couldn't arrange or repairs that were identified as essential or emergency by council inspectors, who then hired contractors to carry out the work and billed owners.
The council charged owners 15% of the total of every bill for administration.
A surge in the number of notices served added to a critical overload at the council's Property Conservation Department which was disbanded after a police investigation into claims of corruption and cronyism.
Accountants are still wading their way through the paper trail and are a long way from establishing how about £17m in outstanding bills will be recovered.
Two dedicated staff currently cost £100,000 a year to sort out backdated statutory notices but a new proposal will mean the council will have to find £450,000 to fund the exercise well into 2015.
The council plans to categorise all outstanding notices and "lift or defer some categories if possible".
Lothian Labour MSP Sarah Boyack said the backlog is shocking, adding: "There is both a human and an economic cost to the statutory notices scandal which still hangs over Edinburgh residents.
"Today constituents got in touch to let me know that because their case is unresolved the sale of their flat has fallen through and they've had to pull out of their bid for another property.
"They are now resigned to having to stay where they are until they get a final resolution to their case."
Surveyor Gordon Murdie called for a public inquiry and said flat sales are being hit "across the city".
Finance convener Alasdair Rankin said: "Defects identified as dangerous would immediately have been served with an emergency notice, with works executed straight away.
"All notices will be thoroughly reviewed and categorised before any decision is taken to lift Statutory Notices. Categories will be identified on completion of this exercise."
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