Help available to bring empty homes back into use
If you have a property that has become ‘stuck’ as an empty home we can help you bring it back into use.
We encourage you to contact our Empty Homes Officer to discuss the reasons behind the property being empty, explore your options, and then support you to find a solution to bring the property back into use.
We can offer you a range of support options which may be available depending on your circumstances and the plans you might have for the property, including:
- Empty homes loans - 5 year, flexible, bridging finance secured as a charge to enable owners to renovate their empty property
- Grants for landlords - available if you plan to make your empty home available for rent to tenants
- Cherwell Bond Scheme - let us help you fund improvements and find tenants
- Advice visits for new landlords - we can give guidance on how to make the property suitable for letting, plus lots of online resources in our Help for landlords pages.
- VAT discounts on renovating empty homes - VAT for building work to empty properties can be charged at a reduced or zero-rate. We can provide a letter which you can use as evidence to HMRC, which could save you thousands of pounds. There is a small fee for this service to cover our administrative costs. Use this form to request and pay for an empty homes VAT-reduction letter.
If you would like to make changes to the property but do not know where to start, please see our planning and building pages for more information.