Local councils have no jurisdiction over these properties in the vast majority of cases, as a search of Probate Court records and Land Registry records will attest. Councils only become involved in very specific cases. For instance; serving maintenance orders under Listed Building Regulations, where a derelict building has become a danger or nuisance to the local community i.e. a derelict house in a terrace of otherwise habitable dwellings or compulsory purchase orders etc.
As to decaying away unnoticed. I question this generalisation and suggest that age and how one explored your immediate neighbourhood as a youth, plays a major part in how one notices / observes these decaying buildings today. Shanks's Pony and the bicycle were our mode of exploring in my early days - at least five large country mansions, that are now empty landlocked ruins, were happy family homes in 1955 when we used to cycle the quiet country roads. In the ensuing years dog walks and family picnics have allowed me to observe the slow ruination of these once vibrant houses. In two instances, abandonment was due to probably the most common cause of why a family inheritor just walks away from a house - lack of maintenance over the years. Anybody who has been involved in the 'restoration' of any Georgian period dwelling, big or small, will know that buildings of this period can exhibit some of the worst 'jerry building' ever seen. Build it quick and impress was the catch phrase of the day. Unfortunately, unless poorly built property (of any period) is fastidiously maintained it soon becomes a candidate for demolition unless vast sums of money are available. So the inheritor, not wanting to be the one that puts the wrecking ball through centuries of family history, lets nature do the work - and anyway the estate land is probably the jewel in the crown. Plenty sold out to the wrecking ball in the 50's and early 60's, as any book on the lost mansions of Yorkshire will indicate.
Each generation certainly lives in a differing age, but the one common thread throughout is that 'you cannot take it with you'. So the abandoned house that looks as if the occupier has just popped out for a loaf of bread does not surprise me at all - under different circumstances is might be me or any of you out there.
