MPS Urge Government to Bring Back Quarter of a Million Empty Homes

• Increase Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) flexibility to enable a greater portion of the funding to be used to bring empty homes back into use – currently this is limited to 10% outside of London.
• Reform Empty Homes Dwelling Management Orders (EDMOs) so that councils can use them to address empty homes after six months rather than two years.
• Introduce a national empty homes strategy as part of the Government’s long-term housing strategy, due next year, and a contribution to the target to deliver 1.5m homes.
• Establish a statutory duty for councils to undertake empty homes work.
• Reform probate to end the situation whereby some properties are exempted from the Empty Homes Premium – an additional tax councils can charge on empty properties – indefinitely.

The Parliamentarians outline that empty homes can play a significant role in immediately addressing the housing supply crisis and addressing homelessness whilst the country scales up building more social and affordable homes.

Commenting, Paula Barker MP said:

“It is not right that so many properties are sitting empty when so many families are in desperate need of a home. We are urging the Government to drive action on empty homes as part of its long-term housing plans. This will enable more households to be supported into a secure home sooner.”  

The full text of the letter can be found here Empty-homes-letter-final-19.12.pdf

The parliamentary roundtable was supported by the housing not-for-profit Capital Letters and homelessness charity Crisis. The letter has been signed by 19 MPs and Peers and organisations including The Empty Homes Network and Action on Empty Homes.