Empty Property

The government intends to build over 3 million new properties in the UK to meet the rising demand for housing in the forth coming years. There are however still a proportion of existing properties which are left unoccupied and unused for long periods of time. In a District where housing demand exceeds housing supply it is difficult to understand why homes are left empty, however we know that this occurs and that there are approximately 50 long term empty properties in Purbeck at the moment.

We want to reduce this number and over the next 5 years we will be working towards significantly reducing it. The Council has agreed a five year target and has put in place a strategy to tackle the problem. We are currently building a data base of these properties and are beginning to investigate why a property is left unoccupied. We will be contacting owners of property which is empty and we will be providing information on how to get it back on the market. We also have agreed financial assistance in the form of a grant called the landlords empty property grant which has an upper limit of £10,000 subject to conditions.

	Landlords Empty Property Grant Information Leaflet 129KB Adobe Acrobat File
	Empty Property Strategy 70KB Adobe Acrobat File

As a last resort we will look to enforce the powers available to local authorities which include empty property management orders as well as forcing the sale of a property on to  the open market.

Reporting an Empty Property

If you would like to report a property which you believe is empty please fill in the form below.

Contact

Environmental Services by email envservices@purbeck-dc.gov.uk or by telephone: 01929 556561

Links:

Department of Communities and Local Government