Empty Home Grants in the North West: What's Available, Where & How Much
The North West of England faces a critical housing challenge, with over 20,000 long-term empty homes sitting vacant while local communities struggle with housing shortages.
Areas like Rochdale have seen a 16% increase in empty properties since 2023, while Liverpool, despite recent improvements, still has over 3,500 abandoned homes.
These vacant properties not only represent missed opportunities for residents but often become neighbourhood eyesores that affect community pride and property values.
This comprehensive guide examines the financial support specifically available across North West councils, including grants, interest-free loans, and innovative leasing schemes designed to transform derelict properties into functional homes.
Whether you're a private owner with an inherited property or a developer looking to revitalise neglected buildings, we've compiled the latest North West funding options to help you navigate each local authority's offerings.
Data updated: February 2025.
Empty Home Grants North West Summary 2025
Currently, 7 out of 35 North West councils offer empty home grants or loans. Preston, Ribble Valley, and Cheshire West & Chester provide the most substantial funding with grants up to £75,000 for conversions. Most schemes require properties to be empty for 12+ months and in council tax bands A-D. Alternative support includes interest-free loans (Burnley, Rochdale, Warrington) and repair and lease schemes (Preston, Tameside).
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by Robert Jones, Founder of Property Investments UK
With two decades in UK property, Rob has been investing in buy-to-let since 2005, and uses property data to develop tools for property market analysis.
How to Access Empty Homes Grants & Funding
This article aims to share across the North-West, which councils provide support to homeowners, tenants and landlords to help bring empty homes back into use.
The support varies from council to council and can be with loans, grants and even lease schemes. Each council has different resources and these can and do change frequently. Once funding is used, they often close the schemes and re-open them in the next financial year depending on how the central government is willing to fund the local schemes and how 'successful' or 'in-demand' they have been.
Some of these schemes only provide grants if the owner then goes on to lease the property to the council for a 5+ year period on a low local market rent. This aim is to solve both empty homes and housing for residents by increasing the number of affordable properties to rent.
So depending on your situation, it's important to check with your local council, what is available for you and your property, to get the best outcome.
We try and update this review regularly to help make people aware of exactly what is available in their area, as is often the case, most owners are simply not aware that support and grants exist or are currently available.
A List of Councils in the Northwest and Their Empty Home Grants
Note: if you're a local council and would like to add your details here to this resource then please contact us with your details and we will be happy to add them for you.
- Blackburn with Darwen
- Blackpool
- Bolton
- Burnley
- Bury
- Cumberland
- Cheshire East
- Cheshire West and Chester
- Chorley
- Fylde
- Halton
- Hyndburn
- Knowsley
- Lancaster
- Liverpool
- Manchester
- Oldham
- Pendle
- Preston
- Ribble Valley
- Rochdale
- Rossendale
- Salford
- Sefton
- South Ribble
- St Helens
- Stockport
- Tameside
- Trafford
- Warrington
- West Lancashire
- Westmorland & Furness
- Wigan
- Wirral
- Wyre
Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council
Location: Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council ward map
Blackburn with Darwen Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do provide some council tax discounts and exemptions for empty homes for a short period.
They also provide energy grants for residents for things like external wall insulation, boiler replacements and many other energy-saving improvements to help a property's energy performance and EPC rating. They also provide the Green Homes Grant up to £10,000 per property.
Learn more about Blackburn's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Blackpool Council
Location: Blackpool Council ward map
Blackpool Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Blackpool Council through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
They have a strategy in place and look to be updating their approach with grants. You can visit their empty homes updates here.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do provide energy efficiency grants up to £38,000. This helps to bring local housing to EPC rating C for rented and owner-occupier homes.
Learn more about Blackpool's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Bolton Council
Location: Bolton council ward map
Bolton Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Bolton Council through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes. You can visit their empty homes updates here.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do provide some support with housing improvements for energy efficiency although these are financial means tested and some are limited to residents over 60 years old. They provide this with their Bolton Care and Repair scheme to help support affordable warmth schemes. This includes properties with no workable central heating systems. It doesn't specify if this is for gas-central heating or oil-central heating systems.
Learn more about Bolton's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Burnley Council
Location: Burnley Council ward map
Burnley Council empty homes grants: ✅ Yes, empty homes loans (not grants) are available in Burnley Council through a local loan scheme. They are interest-free loans, available in the current selective license areas for up to £25,000 and outside of the selective licensing areas for up to £20,000. These are not available to fund the purchase of a property or for a house of multiple occupation conversion.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They also provide emergency work grants for owner-occupiers that are over 60 years old and can be very helpful for run down properties with emergency roof repairs, central heating systems and even fixing dry rot. They also provide a heating rebate scheme to help install new heating systems to replace broken or inefficient central heating.
As one of the more proactive councils to support residents they also provide home improvement grants for older, disabled or vulnerable residents to help them live independently in their own home.
Bury Council
Location: Bury Council ward map
Bury Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Bury Council through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
They do have a specific policy for bringing empty properties and derelict houses back into use. They also have an option for owners to sell their empty property to the council.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They also provide a disabled facilities grant to help adapt homes for owner-occupiers and tenants.
Learn more about Bury's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Cumberland Council
Location: Cumberland council ward map
Cumberland Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there aren't currently any empty homes funding, grants or lease schemes available in Cumberland.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They have grants available for disabled residents. This is a grant of up to £30,000 to help residents (including private tenants) adapt their homes to help maintain an independent lifestyle.
One of the main locations in Cumberland is the city of Carlisle. Learn more about Carlisle's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Cheshire East Council
Location: Cheshire East Council ward map
Cheshire East Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Cheshire East through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do provide means-tested disabled facilities grants for residents. They also provide a list of registered social landlords and suggest these may be interested in purchasing your home if you have a run-down or derelict property you wish to sell in the borough to help bring it back into use.
Learn more about Cheshire's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Cheshire West & Chester Council
Location: Cheshire West & Chester Council ward map
Cheshire West & Chester Council empty homes grants: ✅ Yes, empty homes grants and loans are available in Cheshire West & Chester Council through 3 different programmes.
They have a conversion grant which helps provide funding for up to 50% of eligible works with a maximum of £75,000 per overall housing scheme. Specific criteria need to be met including but not limited to the property being vacant for at least 12 months and planning permission being granted for the conversion.
They have a decent homes loans for homeowners scheme. Intended to help homeowners bring their properties up to the governments decent homes standard. This is an equity loan for homeowners and if you are a low income household you may not have to make contributions.
Cheshire West and Chester also provide an empty homes grant for owners, to help bring run-down and derelict properties back in to use. It can contribute up to 50% of the cost of works for fixing structural issues, major repair works and labour, up to a maximum of £15,000. There is a range of criteria including it must be empty for at least 12 months, be in a council tax A-D and the applicant must have an owners interest in the property.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They also provide a private rented sector service offer for landlords to encourage renting to tenants via the council with a funded and supported scheme.
Learn more about Chester's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Chorley Council
Location: Chorley Council ward map
Chorley Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Chorley through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes. They do have a long-term empty homes policy and you can see updates for their approach to derelict, run-down and empty homes here.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do have disabled facilities grants for residents. Chorley council also provide a paper bond scheme to act as a security deposit for private landlords to assist with housing tenants threatened with homelessness.
Fylde Council
Location: Fylde Council ward map
Fylde Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Fylde through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes. Instead they have an empty homes fund that is designed to work only with registered providers to purchase and renovate the previously empty properties, turning them into affordable housing.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do have disabled facilities grants for residents which are means tested.
Halton Borough Council
Location: Halton Borough Council ward map
Halton Borough Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Halton through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: Unfortunately, there are currently no additional grants or landlord support provided in Halton.
Hyndburn Borough Council
Location: Hyndburn Borough Council ward map
Hyndburn Borough Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Hyndburn through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They have Home Upgrade Grants available which provides funding to improve the energy efficiency of homes for residents, with grants up to £25,000 for owner-occupiers and up to £5,000 for landlords.
They also have disabled facilities grants for residents.
Knowsley Council
Location: Knowsley Council ward map
Knowsley Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Knowsley through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes. Although they do have a matchmaker scheme to help introduce sellers of derelict and run-down empty homes to potential buyers.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do have disabled facilities grants for residents. For elderly, disabled and vulnerable tenants they also have a care and repair scheme that they run in partnership with Livv Housing to help people maintain and live independently in their home.
Lancaster City Council
Location: Lancaster City Council ward map
Lancaster City Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Lancaster through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do have disabled facilities grants for residents. They also provide the home upgrade grant, to improve insulation and heating, which for eligible applicants and properties can be up to £38,000 in grant funding.
Learn more about Lancaster's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Liverpool City Council
Location: Liverpool City Council ward map
Liverpool City Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Liverpool through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They have disabled facilities grants for residents.
Learn more about Liverpool's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Manchester City Council
Location: Manchester City Council ward map
Manchester City Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Manchester through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes. They do however provide options for reducing council tax bills on empty properties. This can be helpful when looking for council tax exemptions.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They have disabled facilities grants for residents. They also provide a funded 'care & repair' service to help elderly, vulnerable and disabled residents maintain their homes. Their is a home energy loan plan (help) for homeowners and some private landlords with improving the energy efficiency of their homes with interest free loans up to £10,000.
Learn more about Manchester's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Oldham Council
Location: Oldham Council ward map
Oldham Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Oldham through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do provide home improvement loans for owner-occupiers. These can be for major repairs including structural issues, new windows or repairs. They also have disabled facilities grants for residents.
Learn more about Oldham's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Pendle Borough Council
Location: Pendle Borough Council ward map
Pendle Borough Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Pendle through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They provide home upgrade grants (hug) which are available for owner-occupiers and tenants to help upgrade heating and improve energy efficiency ratings of a home. They do also provide disabled facilities grants for residents.
Preston City Council
Location: Preston City Council ward map
Preston City Council empty homes grants: ✅ Yes, empty homes grants are available in Preston City Council with their repair and lease scheme.
The terms of this scheme is in partnership with the Community Gateway Association where they will carry out the works for you, they will then lease the property from you and rent it out at an affordable rent to residents on their housing waiting list. This helps bring run-down and derelict empty properties back in to use. At the end of the term of the lease you can then choose to do what you wish with the property.
They can also purchase the property from you if you simply wish to sell your empty house or apartment directly to them.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They also provide disabled facilities grants for residents.
Learn more about Preston's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Ribble Valley Borough Council
Location: Ribble Valley Borough Council ward map
Ribble Valley Borough Council empty homes grants: ✅ Yes, empty homes grants are available in Ribble Valley. They have two options available for landlords including renovation grants and conversion grants.
Renovation grants are available to turn uninhabitable homes back to a decent standard and have criteria to apply including the property must be in council tax bands A -D. The grant assistance available is up to 50% of the work with a maximum of £15,000 per flat and £20,000 per two/three bedroom property. The property must meet the decent home standard on completion.
Conversion grants provide the same level of grant assistance, although part of the qualifying criteria is where premises are converted from previously unused premises to provide residential rented accommodation.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do provide Disabled Facilities Grants for residents.
They also provide a Green Homes Grant for owner-occupiers and tenants. This does not cover gas central heating boilers, but it does cover wider energy improvement measures, with a grant up to £10,000 per qualifying property. It is means tested and it is looking for properties with a low EPC rating of D or lower, with the chance to improve the energy performance rating to a C or above.
Unlike many of the other north west councils, Ribble Valley Borough Council also provide a first time buyer grant up to £15,000 to help new first time buyers undertake critical renovations on run-down houses or improve the energy efficiency of the home they are buying. It has some critieria like the property must be over 10 years old, be in the council tax bands A-C and it is means tested.
Rochdale Borough Council
Location: Rochdale Borough Council ward map
Rochdale Borough Council empty homes grants: ✅ Yes, empty homes loans and schemes are available in Rochdale. They have 2 options available.
Empty property loans are provided up to £15,000 per property. The loans are even interest-free for the first year to encourage derelict and run-down houses and apartments to be improved and added back to the local housing stock for owner-occupiers or tenants.
Repair and lease schemes are available for properties requiring significant refurbishment. You will need to do more than add a driveway to add value, as it is intended to bring run-down homes back into fit and proper housing for rented accommodation. Part of the criteria is the property is leased to a housing association for 2-10 years.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They also provide a private sector lease scheme for habitable properties that do not require any works and you can simply lease the property to a housing association for 1-7 years.
Learn more about Rochdale's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Rossendale Borough Council
Location: Rossendale Borough Council ward map
Rossendale Borough Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Rossendale through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes. They do have a comprehensive housing strategy for 2023 to 2027 which includes making available more affordable homes for residents, but nothing specific for funding development of empty homes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do provide home improvement dementia grants to fund a range of adaptations to help people live well at home. They also provide the Home Upgrade Grants (HUG) with funding up to £38,000 per eligible property for homeowners and £5,000 per property for landlords. The grants are means tested.
Salford City Council
Location: Salford City Council ward map
Salford Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Salford through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do have some disabled facilities grants for residents.
Learn more about Salford's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Sefton Council
Location: Sefton Council ward map
Sefton Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Sefton through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes. However, they are updating their policy for empty properties for 2025 onwards.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They are applying for the next round of Government funding to help support warm homes and if successful the next grants will be available for residents from April 2025. This will be available for homeowners with no contribution and to landlords with some contribution required. The aim of the grant will be to improve the energy efficiency for homes to achieve EPC rating of C and above.
South Ribble Borough Council
Location: South Ribble Borough Council ward map
South Ribble Borough Council empty homes grants: ✅ Yes, empty homes loans and schemes are available in South Ribble. This is in the form of renovation grants where substantial work is required to make the property fit to live in, turning the empty dwelling into a habitable home. There are some requirements, like, the property must be within council tax bands A-D and not being a liveable property currently. The grant assistance is up to £4,500 per room. In return for the financial assistance provided, the property must be let for a period of 5 years with nominations of suitable tenants from the council.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They provide Disabled Facilities Grants for residents.
St Helens Council
Location: St Helens Council ward map
St Helens Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in St Helens through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do not currently provide any other grants or funding. They have applied for funding with central Government for the Warm Homes Local Grant Scheme and if successful will help local residents with upgrading heating and insulation to improve energy efficiency.
Learn more about St Helens property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Stockport Council
Location: Stockport Council ward map
Stockport Council empty homes grants: ✅ Yes, an empty property grant is available in Stockport but only for the Townscape Heritage Area of the town. This provides funding up to 75% for external repairs and architectural reinstatement such as sash windows and traditional shop fronts.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They provide Disabled Facilities Grants for residents. They also help support the Energy Company Obligation Scheme with vulnerable and low-income households to improve their property's energy efficiency.
Learn more about Stockport's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Tameside Council
Location: Tameside Council ward map
Tameside Council empty homes grants: ✅ Yes, an empty property grant is available in Tameside. This is available with a lease and repair scheme. Empty property criteria includes; a partnership with Ashton Pioneer Homes where the owner leases the property for 6 years in return for works completed on the property to make it a habitable home and guaranteed rent. Up to £28,000 is available in grants per property, but the grant is usually capped at 50% of the total cost.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They provide support via the Energy Company Obligation scheme (ECO) that includes upgrading low energy efficient homes, this runs to 31st March 2026.
Learn more about Tameside's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Trafford Borough Council
Location: Trafford Borough Council ward map
Trafford Borough Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Trafford through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes. They do, however, support landlords with empty properties in other ways, by providing a lease scheme of up to 5 years with guaranteed rent and an introduction to partners who can carry out repair works at potentially a discounted rate. But, there is no detail on how much discount, what is covered and who funds the cost of the works if the property is leased to the housing provider.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do provide a Disabled Facilities Grant for owner-occupiers and tenants and moving assistance grants where those major adaptations are not possible.
Learn more about Trafford's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Warrington Council
Location: Warrington Council ward map
Warrington Council empty homes grants: ✅ Yes, a vacant homes low-cost loan is available in Warrington to help bring derelict, empty and run-down homes back in to habitable use. This is up to £10,000 per property and is subject to terms and conditions and available funding at the time.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: Warrington Council provide a safe and secure grant for vulnerable homeowners. This is an interest-free loan of up to £25,000 and covers major works to make the property safe. They also provide a Disabled Facilities Grant for residents.
Learn more about Warrington's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
West Lancashire Council
Location: West Lancashire Council ward map
West Lancashire Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in West Lancashire through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do have some funding for energy efficiency grants with the Cosy Homes in Lancashire project. They also provide Home Repair Assistance Grants for low-income, disabled or vulnerable home-owners up to £5,000 to carry out minor works to make your property habitable and safe.
Westmorland & Furness Council
Location: Westmorland & Furness Council ward map
Westmorland & Furness Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Westmorland & Furness through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do have some disabled facilities grants for residents in Barrow, Eden & South Lakeland.
Wigan Council
Location: Wigan Council ward map
Wigan Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Wigan through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes. They do however provide some council tax exemptions for empty homes where they are undergoing major renovation works, so if you are bringing derelict homes back to use. You can see Wigan Council council tax exemptions for empty homes here.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: For properties in Ashton-in-Makerfield town centre, they do have a grant scheme with £500,000 of central Government funding that runs to March 2026 however this is only for commercial properties. They have a similar scheme for Leigh town centre which is also for commercial properties and is a £1 million Government fund.
For residential landlords they have an Ethical Lettings Agency (ELA) that provides a leasing scheme for landlords of up to 5 years with guaranteed rent.
Learn more about Wigan's property market, rental yields and best buy-to-let areas in our detailed location review.
Wirral Council
Location: Wirral Council ward map
Wirral Council empty homes grants: ✅ Yes, empty property grants are available in Wirral to help bring derelict, empty and run-down homes back into habitable use. This includes a grant of up to £10,000 where the property is leased back to the council for 3 years, or a grant of £5,000 to help with capital costs of refurbishment where the empty property can be brought back into occupation for the owner or tenant.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: Wirral Council also provides Heating and Renovation grants and/or loans to low-income residents. This support is for emergency repairs and can include heating repairs or heating improvements.
Wyre Council
Location: Wyre Council ward map
Wyre Council empty homes grants: ❌ Unfortunately, there are currently no empty homes grants available in Wyre through any local grant, funding, or lease schemes.
Additional homeowner, tenant and landlord grants: They do provide the Green Homes Grant to Wyre residents with the Cosy Homes in Lancashire initiative. Supporting energy efficiency improvements up to £10,000 per property.
Empty & Derelict Homes Additional Support
There are some additional schemes that are worth looking at for both homeowners and developers working with run-down, derelict or simply long-term empty homes.
This includes
Reduced VAT
VAT is a big cost on traditional renovation work, increasing costs by 20%. When you considers a refurbishment can run in to the tens of thousands or even more for larger properties, this can be significant.
For long-term empty homes, builders can charge a reduced rate of VAT at only 5%. This is with the buildings and construction VAT notice 708. So make sure to share this with your refurbishment team if you are considering major works.
Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT)
This is a common cost for people buying properties. It can be significant and can be the difference between a buyer being able to purchase a particular home or not.
In the case of derelict homes. There are some, limited, occasions when SDLT may not be payable. There is specific criteria for this and the property needs to be deemed as derelict and uninhabitable. HMRC have provided some guidance on this here. You can also contact the SDLT team and ask to get clarity for your specific situation.
The aim here is to help provide solutions to help encourage empty, derelict and run-down homes back into use.
For more straightforward SDLT calculations you can see what the costs could be with our calculators
The Future (and History) of Empty Homes Grants
In September 2013 the Government provided funding via the Empty Homes Loan Fund, where loans were provided to homeowners to bring their properties back to a liveable standard. Yet, in August 2014, this was abolished due to a low take-up. Ever since then, the approach to empty homes seems to have changed from a carrot to a stick approach.
With newer government initiatives like doubling council tax on properties that have been empty for more than 12 months. This may seem like an easy win for councils, but the reality is homes stay empty not often out of choice but out of circumstances, personal and financial.
This isn't solved by increasing the burden on homeowners with extra costs.
In 2024, the number of long-term empty homes is reported as 265,061 in England, this is staggering.
When there are so many families and individuals in need of homes across the country, this is grim reading.
We all know of a building or development that looks awful or has become a burden to the community. In the UK, in the major cities and towns, we have a chronic shortage of housing, and the only way to tackle this successfully is in part by building new homes but also by turning derelict, vacant, run-down buildings back into habitable housing.
This is a win for everyone. It provides homes for local communities, creates work for local trades and ultimately improves the area.
Now you know which councils in the North West may be able to assist with funding support, there are different property tools you can use to identify run-down homes, and techniques to use property portals like Rightmove, to specifically find houses that need renovation.
We hope this guide can help you on your way to bringing vacant empty run-down homes in your community back in to use.
Please share it with others to help raise awareness for the available support councils and government can provide to property owners and communities.
Other Regions
For an insight into the solutions at local authority level across the country, below are reviews on what grants, funding and lease schemes are available in other regions to help owners bring these homes back into use for residents.