Abstract. For a group G, let U be the group of units of the integral group ring ZG. The group G is said to have the normalizer property if N U ðGÞ ¼ ZðUÞG. It is shown that Blackburn groups have the normalizer property. These are the groups which have non-normal finite subgroups, with the intersection of all of them being non-trivial. Groups G for which classpreserving automorphisms are inner automorphisms, Out c ðGÞ ¼ 1, have the normalizer property. Recently, Herman and Li have shown that Out c ðGÞ ¼ 1 for a finite Blackburn group G. We show that Out c ðGÞ ¼ 1 for the members G of certain classes of metabelian groups, from which the Herman-Li result follows.Together with recent work of Hertweck, Iwaki, Jespers and Juriaans, our main result implies that, for an arbitrary group G, the group Z y ðUÞ of hypercentral units of U is contained in ZðUÞG.