Empty Home Grants in West Midlands: What's Available, Where & How Much

Eleven West Midlands councils advertise a loan, a grant, a lease or a rent guarantee to help bring an empty home back into use. Six offer a loan. Most go up to between £5,000 and £10,000. Sandwell's goes up to £20,000, but its policy states that figure only for owner occupiers who pass a means test. One council, Staffordshire Moorlands, advertises a grant, normally up to £2,000 a home. Rugby and Solihull lease homes from landlords, and Birmingham and Coventry offer rent guarantees.

None of it is automatic. Staffordshire Moorlands' grant depends on each year's budget, and the loans come with conditions such as enough equity in the home or a minimum income. Some councils add cash incentives that aren't grants for the work, such as Wolverhampton's payment of up to £500 towards selling a long-empty home.

Article updated: October 2026

The official count for 2025 found 33,215 homes in the West Midlands empty for over six months, in the Council Taxbase 2025 statistics. Our page on empty home numbers in England has the count for every council.

Council websites checked: 11 October 2026.

A List of Councils in the West Midlands and Their Empty Home Grants

On their own pages, eleven of the 30 housing councils in the West Midlands advertise a loan, a grant, a lease or a rent guarantee that can help bring an empty home back into use. A council advertising a scheme doesn't mean money is still left in it, so check with the council before you plan around it.

None of the West Midlands council pages we checked publishes a list of empty homes. You can report an empty home to the council instead, and in Wolverhampton you can ask the council to pass your details to the owner of one you'd like to buy. A Land Registry search shows who owns a registered property. A title register costs £7 online.

The table sets out each scheme's limit, minimum time empty and main conditions. Coventry's scheme sets the rent at the Local Housing Allowance rate, the maximum used to work out housing benefit for a private tenant in that area.

Stoke-on-Trent's empty homes grant and loan sit in its 2021 to 2026 policy, and Shropshire's grant is in an older FAQ, but neither is confirmed as open. Lichfield and South Staffordshire say they offer no grants or loans for empty homes.

Wyre Forest is the one West Midlands housing council without an entry below. Its empty properties page mentions possible financial help to refurbish a home and let it, without naming a grant or giving terms. Its empty property strategy describes a rent bond scheme and a tenant finder service. Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire county councils leave housing to their district councils, so they aren't listed either. Staffordshire's Warmer Home Grant, an energy grant for the household living in a home, covers all eight of the county's districts and is explained under East Staffordshire.

There are 30 housing councils in the West Midlands, A to Z:

• Birmingham
• Bromsgrove
• Cannock Chase
• Coventry
• Dudley
• East Staffordshire
• Herefordshire
• Lichfield
• Malvern Hills
• Newcastle-under-Lyme
• North Warwickshire
• Nuneaton and Bedworth
• Redditch
• Rugby
• Sandwell
• Shropshire
• Solihull
• South Staffordshire
• Stafford
• Staffordshire Moorlands
• Stoke-on-Trent
• Stratford-on-Avon
• Tamworth
• Telford and Wrekin
• Walsall
• Warwick
• Wolverhampton
• Worcester
• Wychavon
• Wyre Forest

Birmingham City Council

Rent guarantee: Birmingham's Accommodation Finding Team finds private homes for people who are homeless. It offers landlords a one-off payment for each letting on a periodic tenancy, a five-week deposit indemnity and cover for one month's rent, landlord insurance, and a newer scheme that pays for yearly insurance and guarantees the rent. No amounts or durations are published. The home has to be self-contained, in good repair and carry the standard safety and energy certificates.

Grant or loan: none on Birmingham's empty homes page, last updated in February 2023, which offers advice from the empty property team. A council news release from March 2026 says the Empty Homes Team brought 340 empty homes back into use over the previous year. The release also says council tax records showed around 5,200 privately owned homes in the city empty for two years or more. Birmingham uses compulsory purchase only as a last resort to bring an empty home back into use.

Register and homes for sale: we found no empty homes register on Birmingham City Council's pages, and no empty homes for sale through them. Homes taken through enforcement can end up at auction, though: the same release describes a Perry Barr home put up for auction after enforcement action, then sold and renovated by its new owners. Anyone can report an empty home.

The Accommodation Finding Team helps tenants arrange rent through Universal Credit or Housing Benefit, and the Local Housing Allowance rates behind those payments are in our guide to Birmingham's property market.

Bromsgrove District Council

Grant or loan: none with published terms. Bromsgrove's empty homes page offers advice on inspecting the property, planning the work and finding contractors, and help selling or letting it.

Letting help: the Step-Up scheme finds tenants and offers rent in advance and a deposit guarantee bond. It mentions "pathways into grant assistance" for any works, but names no grant or amount. No lease or rent guarantee is advertised.

Council tax: Bromsgrove gives a 100% discount for up to 12 months on a home needing major repairs, counted from when it first fell empty and needed the work. Its council tax page says no new discount starts when you buy the home.

Cannock Chase Council

Grant or loan for empty homes: none found. The council's private sector housing team works on bringing empty homes back into use. Its help for private owners with urgent repairs includes a loans scheme, an equity release scheme and a handyman service, with no amounts or terms on the page.

Letting help: HomeFinder, run with Churches Housing Coalition, helps households into private tenancies with rent in advance and a guarantee against loss and damage.

Coventry City Council

Rent guarantee: Coventry's Let's Rent+ scheme helps a landlord let to a tenant at the Local Housing Allowance rate. The council guarantees six months' rent spread over the first 12 months of the tenancy, and the guarantee stops after that first year. It also pays a one-off joining bonus when the tenancy is signed. It's letting help with a limited guarantee, not a council lease.

Grant or loan: none found on the council's empty property pages.

Let's Rent+ ties the rent to Local Housing Allowance, and Coventry's rates are listed in our guide to Coventry's property market.

Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council

Grant or loan: nothing with published terms. Dudley's empty properties page refers to "schemes and financial incentives available" without naming one; the empty homes team can say what is open.

Letting help: the rent deposit scheme gives the landlord a written guarantee instead of a cash deposit, covering eligible claims in the first year.

East Staffordshire Borough Council

Grant, loan or lease: none on its pages. East Staffordshire's empty properties page covers enforcement: securing empty homes left open, nuisance notices and inspections, with enforcement charges typically £250 to £500.

Other help, once someone lives there: Staffordshire County Council's Warmer Home Grant is an energy grant, not an empty homes grant. It's open to applications and now takes homes on the gas grid as well as off it, so a home with a mains gas boiler isn't ruled out. It's for the household living in the home, so it helps once a home has tenants. The national Warm Homes Local Grant it runs on can pay for home insulation, heat pumps or solar panels.

Herefordshire Council

Grant or loan: none with published terms, though the council will tell you whether you may qualify for financial help. Herefordshire's empty homes page also offers advice on the work a home needs and its likely cost, plus contact details for local contractors and social housing providers.

Our guide to Hereford's property market shows what similar homes there sell and let for, which is useful before you price the work.

Lichfield District Council

Grant or loan: ruled out. Lichfield's empty homes policy page says: "We do not offer any grants or loans for home owners of empty properties."

Lease: none found.

Without a council grant or loan in Lichfield, an owner deciding between selling and letting can compare the sold prices, rents and selling times in our guide to Lichfield's property market.

Malvern Hills District Council

Loan: Malvern Hills' empty homes loan is interest free, up to £7,500 per property to the registered owner of a home in the district that has been empty for at least six months. It's repaid monthly over two or three years. The council approves the works, which have to bring the home up to the Decent Homes standard and an EPC rating of E or better. Within 12 months of the works finishing, the home has to be lived in, let, on the market or offered through the council's tenant referral service.

Cash incentive: the council also pays £1,000 once the loan-funded works are done and you let the home to a tenant it refers. Its published terms ask for a fixed term of at least 12 months, but since 1 May 2026 a new assured tenancy in England can't have an end date, so ask the council how it now applies that condition. The payment can be reclaimed if the terms are broken or you end the tenancy in the first six months, and the council doesn't act as guarantor for the rent or damage.

Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. Newcastle-under-Lyme's empty houses page offers owners advice on renovating, selling or letting.

North Warwickshire Borough Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found on its pages. North Warwickshire's private rented housing pages explain the energy performance certificate every rented or sold home needs, and the minimum energy efficiency rules for letting one.

Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council

Loan: Nuneaton and Bedworth's empty home loan is interest free, up to £10,000, for an owner whose home has been empty for six months or more. You need enough equity in the home, the loan is repaid within five years of the money being released, and anything over £3,000 is secured with a charge at the Land Registry.

Letting help: the Housing Solutions Support Scheme finds tenants, can pay the first month's rent and a deposit of up to five weeks, and can pay for a rent guarantee insurance policy the landlord arranges. The council says plainly that it doesn't run a leasing or guaranteed rent scheme.

Redditch Borough Council

Grant or loan for empty homes: none found. Redditch's empty homes page offers practical help, advice on selling or letting, and the Step-Up Private Tenancy Scheme to find a tenant.

HMO loan: Redditch lends interest free for up to half the cost of works to improve a house of multiple occupation, to a standard the council sets. The works its HMO loan page lists include central heating, insulation, new roofs, a new modern boiler and new Fensa installed windows. The loan is repaid in full when the home is sold or stops being an HMO, and it isn't limited to empty homes.

Council tax: a home needing major repairs can get a 100% discount for up to 12 months, counted from when it first fell empty, and Redditch's council tax page says buying it doesn't start a new one.

Rugby Borough Council

Lease: Rugby's homelessness strategy for 2025 to 2029 describes a private sector leasing scheme, running since 2022, in which the council leases homes from landlords for interim accommodation. Its lease length, rent and whether it's taking new homes aren't published; the council can tell you.

Grant or loan: none found for empty homes on its pages. Rugby's empty properties page offers advice, and a letter confirming how long a home has been empty, which is one of the conditions for the reduced 5% VAT rate on renovation.

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council

Loan: Sandwell's empty properties service includes loans, and section 23 of its June 2023 housing assistance policy sets out the Empty Property Loan. It's interest free and means tested, for owners whose finances stop them making a long-term empty home with serious hazards safe to live in. Loans are limited and at the council's discretion. The owner has to be a person, not a company, and a permanent UK citizen, and the loan is secured with a charge on the property.

The policy's table gives the Empty Property Loan a £20,000 maximum for owner occupiers and gives no maximum for landlords. It gives two answers on repayment, within a month of the works or in instalments once the home is let or lived in, and the council can say which applies and whether money is left.

Letting help: Sandwell's landlord page describes council-funded insurance covering up to six months' rent arrears and damage, but says the offer is "still under development".

Shropshire Council

Grant: not confirmed as open. Shropshire's current empty properties page points owners to estate agents and Action on Empty Homes for advice. It says Shropshire's Council Tax team can confirm how long a home has been empty, which is one of the conditions for the reduced VAT rate. The page also says the council has "very limited powers" over empty homes. It doesn't invite grant applications. An older council FAQ describes a grant of typically up to £10,000 per home, and nothing on the current pages confirms it is still funded.

Loan or lease: none found.

Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council

Lease: Solihull Community Housing, which manages the council's homes, runs private sector leasing for two and three-bedroom family homes. It advertises guaranteed rent paid half-yearly in advance, no management or agent fees, and an inspection every three months. Homes are checked before they're accepted and have to meet repair and safety standards. The current page gives no rent figure or lease length, and the landlord pack it links to dates from 2019. My one council lease, on one property over a long term, brought the rent in on time from start to finish with no management problems, and the property came back in good condition. Solihull's scheme is its own, and Solihull Community Housing can tell you how it works.

Grant or loan: none found on the council's empty homes page, which points owners to the leasing scheme.

Our guide to Solihull's property market has rents across the borough to compare with Solihull Community Housing's offer.

South Staffordshire Council

Grant or loan: ruled out. South Staffordshire's empty properties page says: "There are currently no grants or loans available from the council for owners of empty properties." The page also explains how to report an empty home. It says the council's legal powers are used only as a last resort.

Lease: none found.

Stafford Council

Loan: Stafford's empty homes loan is interest free, up to £10,000, for a home that has been empty for at least two years. You need to have owned it for at least 12 months, have enough equity and pay for any work above £10,000 yourself. The council registers a local land charge and won't fund work already done. The loan is repaid in full when the home is sold or lived in again, and within two years at most.

Letting help: the council's Housing Options team can help you find a tenant.

Lease: none found.

Staffordshire Moorlands District Council

Grant: the Home Repairs Assistance Grant is mainly for vulnerable households, but can also help bring an empty home back into long-term use, to live in or to rent out. It's normally up to £2,000 per property over two years, with more possible case by case for substantial works. It's discretionary and depends on each financial year's capital budget. It can pay for essential repairs, replacing lead pipes, reducing radon and improving energy efficiency.

The council's empty homes page adds advice on renovating and letting.

Loan or lease: none found.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council

Grant and loan, in policy only: Stoke-on-Trent's housing renewal assistance policy for 2021 to 2026 includes an empty homes grant for accredited landlords, matching their spending up to £5,000, and an interest-free empty homes loan of £10,000 to £20,000. Neither is confirmed as open. A council news story from March 2026 announced plans to find a provider and launch an improved housing repairs loan service, and we found no sign yet that it has launched.

Register: we found no empty homes register on the council's pages, and its old empty homes information page no longer loads.

If you'd rather sell than renovate, our guide to Stoke-on-Trent's property market shows sold prices and how long homes take to sell across the city.

Stratford-on-Avon Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. The council's empty property pages give guidance on renovating, selling and letting.

Tamworth Borough Council

Grant or loan: nothing with published terms. Tamworth's empty homes page offers practical help and, "in some cases, financial support", without saying what that is.

Council tax: from 1 April 2026, Tamworth charges an extra 100% on homes empty for a year or more, 200% after five years and 300% after ten. Its January 2026 announcement expected 162 homes in the borough to pay it.

Telford and Wrekin Council

Loan, through a partner: Telford and Wrekin's renovating an empty property page says the council doesn't offer grants for empty homes. It points owners to the Better Homes Loan from Just Credit Union instead, and the lending decision is the credit union's.

Just Credit Union's Better Homes Loan page offers £300 to £8,000 for eligible work on a property. You need to be aged 18 to 65, live in the Telford and Wrekin area, be able to join the credit union and have an income of at least £125 a week. Its loan calculator shows only an illustrative rate and lets you choose the repayment period, so confirm the actual rate with the credit union.

Lease: none found.

Other help: the council offers to mediate between the people involved when an empty home is caught up in, for example, a family dispute.

Walsall Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found on Walsall's pages.

Register: we found no empty homes register on Walsall's pages. You report an empty home by emailing the council's housing standards team, and the council traces the owner through its own records and HM Land Registry. It says it can't share information about the owner. For the longest-empty and most harmful homes, it uses compulsory purchase orders, empty dwelling management orders and enforced sales. In 2023, the Secretary of State agreed compulsory purchase orders on five long-term empty homes in Walsall.

Once a renovated home in Walsall is ready to let, the rents and Local Housing Allowance rates in our guide to Walsall's property market show what you could charge.

Warwick District Council

Grant or loan for empty homes: none found. Warwick's empty properties page describes helping owners bring homes back into use, without a named scheme.

Lease: no scheme with published terms. The council invites owners to offer a home for its tenants but publishes no lease length, rent or guarantee. A council news story from January 2026 said the council was introducing a private sector leasing scheme, and we found no sign yet that it has launched.

City of Wolverhampton Council

Register and buying: we found no empty homes register or list on Wolverhampton's pages. If you've seen an empty home you'd like to buy, the council's buying an empty property page says the Empty Properties team can pass your details to the owner if it can trace them. Any sale is then a private deal. Anyone can report an empty home.

Sale incentive: Wolverhampton's empty property incentive pays up to £500 towards legal or marketing fees when an empty home in the city is sold on the open market. The incentive is for a home that has been empty for six months and wouldn't have sold without the council stepping in. It's paid first come, first served to priority groups, and comes with three more conditions:

• the home sells within six months of going on the market
• the buyer isn't a relative
• any money owed to the council is paid from the sale

Grant, loan or lease: none found. The council's owner advice says a housing association may be able to manage the home, without giving rent, length or a guarantee.

If the council does put you in touch with an owner, our guide to Wolverhampton's property market has sold prices across the city to check an asking price against, plus the Local Housing Allowance rates.

Worcester City Council

Grant, loan or lease for empty homes: none found. Worcester's empty properties page offers advice to owners.

Letting help: Worcester City Lettings, a social letting agency, offers let-only and managed lets, with help on tenants and deposit bonds.

If you'd rather sell than let through City Lettings, our guide to Worcester's property market shows how long homes take to sell in each of the city's five postcodes.

Wychavon District Council

Loan: Wychavon's empty homes loan is up to £5,000 per property, for the registered owner of a home empty for at least six months. It's repaid monthly over two or three years, and the council approves the works, which bring the home up to the Decent Homes standard and EPC E or above. Within 12 months of the works finishing, the home has to be lived in, let, on the market or offered through the council's referral service.

Cash incentive: Wychavon pays £1,000 after the loan works when a tenant the council refers moves in. As in Malvern Hills, its terms ask for a fixed term of at least 12 months, which a new assured tenancy in England can no longer have since 1 May 2026, so ask the council how it now applies that. The council doesn't guarantee the rent.

Empty & Derelict Homes Additional Support

Renovation work on a long-empty home can qualify for VAT at 5% under VAT Notice 708, while HMRC's stamp duty manual gives no reduction for a home in poor condition.

Reduced VAT

Qualifying renovation work on a home that nobody has lived in for the two years before the work starts can be charged at 5% VAT instead of the standard rate, under the conditions in VAT Notice 708. Building materials the contractor fits are included, but goods such as carpets and fitted bedroom furniture aren't.

Under the same notice, a letter from a council's empty property officer confirming the two years is enough evidence on its own. Rugby's empty properties page says the council can provide that letter, and Shropshire's says its Council Tax team can provide the evidence.

Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT)

In its SDLT manual, HMRC rules out any relief or reduced rate for homes described as "uninhabitable", and says only a very limited number of properties count as not suitable to live in. It also warns that a very high proportion of repayment claims made on these grounds are wrong, and that some repayment agents push buyers into making them.

The manual's list of problems that still leave a building suitable to live in includes a roof that needs replacing, pests, flood damage, asbestos and unsafe wiring.

Our calculators work out the tax on a purchase in England, Wales and Scotland:

• England stamp duty land tax calculator
• Wales stamp duty land tax calculator 
• Scotland land and building transaction tax

Government Funding and Council Tax on Empty Homes

Every empty homes grant and loan we found in the West Midlands comes from a council, or in Telford's case the credit union it works with. We found no government scheme that a private owner can apply to directly for the cost of doing up an empty home.

The government programmes we found don't fund an owner doing up a home to let privately. The Social and Affordable Homes Programme, a ten-year government programme from 2026 that Homes England runs in England outside London, funds empty homes that a provider buys or leases, repairs and turns into social or affordable housing. The bidders it names are registered providers, councils, housebuilders and developers, charities and community-led groups, and the landlord of a home it funds for social or affordable rent has to be registered with the Regulator of Social Housing. The Local Authority Housing Fund also goes to councils, to get homes for temporary and resettlement housing.

The government's guidance for councils lets a council add a premium to the council tax on a home left empty and substantially unfurnished. Since April 2024 it can start after one year rather than two. The premium is up to 100% for one to five years, 200% for five to ten and 300% after that. Councils don't have to charge it, and from April 2025 some homes, for example one up for sale or to let, don't pay it for a set time.

What I've seen catch new landlords out most with an empty property is the mortgage interest and council tax that still go out every month while nobody lives there. A premium makes each of those empty months dearer, and it can step up after five and ten years.

Our guide on how to find houses that need renovation covers the keyword searches, such as "renovation project", that bring them up on Rightmove and Zoopla. The browser extensions in our list of different property tools can show a listing's price history and a potential rental yield without leaving the page.

Some landlords renovate an empty home to let, and others buy a rental home instead. The full cost of doing up an empty home can be compared with what a rental home costs to buy, and our listings of investment properties, buy-to-let property for sale and below-market-value properties show the asking prices and yields.

Other Regions

Our guides to other regions list what each council there advertises for empty homes, and the statistics page has England's official count:

• London Empty Homes Grants
• East Midlands Empty Homes Grants
• North West Empty Home Grants
• England Empty Home Statistics

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