Glasgow revives over 3,000 long-vacant homes through council-led initiative

Glasgow City Council’s work to tackle long-term property vacancy has now resulted in more than 3,000 empty homes being returned to use, providing much-needed accommodation for individuals and families across the city. The vast majority of these properties – 94% – have been restored since the launch of the council’s Empty Homes Strategy in April 2019.

The Strategy plays a crucial role in several areas. It makes a significant contribution to Glasgow’s housing stock at a time when the city is facing a Housing Emergency, supports neighbourhood regeneration, and helps address issues of local decline, as unoccupied properties can quickly become unattractive or vulnerable to damage. There is also a strong financial case for the work: refurbishing an empty property is substantially more cost-effective than constructing a new home.

Empty homes are defined as privately owned residential properties left unused for at least six months. A variety of factors can lead to prolonged vacancy, including mortgage arrears and repossessions, the death or inaccessibility of owners, unresolved title matters, and properties falling into disrepair.

The key aims of the council’s Empty Homes Strategy are to:

• increase the availability of housing stock to meet demand, providing good-quality accommodation for those who need it;
• identify opportunities for suitable housing for particular groups, such as larger families, homeless people, and those with a variety of support needs;
• offer homeowners information and advice to help bring properties back into use;
• safeguard the interest of tenement flat owners to facilitate common repairs work; and
• tackle environmental and neighbourhood blight.

The council will also use CPO (compulsory purchase) powers in cases where owners cannot be traced or refuse to engage with the council’s Empty Homes team, and 74 homes have been brought back to use through CPOs as part of the strategy, with the vast majority of these being allocated to housing associations in the city for such as socially-rented homes.

Councillor Ruairi Kelly, Convener for Housing, Development and Land Use at Glasgow City Council, said: “While the figure of 3,000 empty homes being brought back to life in Glasgow is a landmark figure, what is really important here is that thousands of people and families now have homes to stay in that they would otherwise not, and that city neighbourhoods are being improved.  In saying that, there are still far too many empty homes in the city, so we will continue our work on what has been a very successful strategy so far and ask owners of empty homes to get in touch with the council to get assistance in selling for private sale or to local housing associations.”

There are still around 3,000 empty homes in private ownership across Glasgow, with around 2,000 of these having been empty for more than 12 months.

In response to the city’s Housing Emergency and to tackle the current housing shortage, the council is launching a grant scheme to encourage owners to bring their properties back into use. Where they are unable to do so, the council will put owners in touch with housing associations who would be interested in acquiring the properties for social housing. We would urge all empty homeowners to now take action to tackle the current housing crisis.  Information on the grant scheme can be found at Empty Homes – Glasgow City Council and owners interested in selling their property can email the council at emptyhomes@glasgow.gov.uk.

Owners are asked to contact the above email address if they are not looking to occupy their current property or leave it unoccupied for any length of time.  Alternatively, if people own a residential property in Glasgow and are simply looking to sell it then they can contact Glasgow City Council at NRSHousingAcquisitions@glasgow.gov.uk for assistance and the team can put them in touch with a Housing Association who could acquire the property.