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

Five of the North West's 35 councils advertise a grant to help bring an empty home back into use. Liverpool pays up to £20,000 a home, and Ribble Valley up to £20,000 for a two or three-bedroom home. Cheshire West and Chester pays up to £15,000, as does Westmorland and Furness. South Ribble pays £4,500 for each bedroom, with no overall limit stated.

In four of those five, all except Westmorland and Furness, you then let the home for three or five years to tenants the council puts forward, at a rent tied to housing benefit rates. Three more councils, Burnley, Bury and Warrington, advertise loans instead, though Bury's own pages disagree on whether its loan is available. Six advertise taking an empty home on a lease, themselves or through a housing partner.

Article updated: October 2026

The money is limited. Liverpool's grant is aimed at 365 homes, and Burnley, Cheshire West and Chester and Warrington all say their help depends on the funding they have.

Council websites checked: 11 October 2026.

How to Access Empty Homes Grants & Funding

You apply to the council where the home is. Every grant and loan for empty homes we found in the North West comes from a council, each with its own rules. In Liverpool, Cheshire West and Chester and Ribble Valley, you get quotes and the council approves the grant before work starts.

Councils pay at different points. Liverpool releases the money once the work is finished and the contractors' invoices are in. Cheshire West and Chester pays only once the home is occupied. Ribble Valley pays after a final inspection, and offers interim payments on request.

There's no single rule on how long the home must have stood empty. Liverpool wants 12 months, a Burnley loan outside its selective licensing areas needs two years, and Ribble Valley and South Ribble state no minimum but want a home that's unfit to live in.

Greater Manchester's ten councils share an £11.7 million package from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, announced in November 2025, to refurbish or lease up to 400 empty homes and pay for 17 empty homes officers. Landlords who join its lease-or-repair scheme must sign up to the Good Landlord Charter. No start date or application route is published, so owners in Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan have to ask their own council.

Most grants set the rent at Local Housing Allowance, the rate housing benefit pays towards rent in that area.

The grants pay for essential repairs that make a home safe, decent and lettable. Liverpool's leaves out amenities, furnishings and furniture, and Cheshire West and Chester's leaves out decoration and floor coverings. Improvements made to raise the value, such as plans to add a driveway to add value, appear on neither council's list of what its grant covers.

From the refurbishments I've done, there's very often more to a run-down house than the first viewing shows, from structural problems to planning questions. Work that turns up after the grant is agreed can push the bill past what the grant pays.

A lease swaps a string of tenants for one: the council, or a housing partner working for it. It finds the people who live there, deals with them, and pays you rent for the agreed term. For an owner who lives a long way from the house, that removes the viewings, the call-outs and the chasing.

I let one of my properties to a council on a long lease, and it was a really good experience. I was handed it back in good condition when the lease ended, and for the whole term I never once had to chase the rent or deal with a management problem. The North West schemes differ on length, rent and repairs, where they publish terms at all, so mine is just one example.

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

Each of the region's councils has an entry, and eight of them advertise a grant or a loan for an empty home. Every entry covers only what that council advertised on its own website.

No North West council we checked puts a list of its empty homes online. Manchester runs a free register that tells property investors about empty homes that may interest them. Wirral keeps a Developers List of developers it tells about run-down empty homes whose owners have asked for help selling. Stockport's Empty to Plenty pages, last updated in January 2020 and not confirmed as current, describe a list of property investors and landlords who want to buy, which the council sends to owners who ask. Bury, Cheshire West and Chester and Knowsley run matchmaker schemes that put buyers in touch with owners who want to sell.

The table compares the grants and loans those eight councils advertise. Where a cell reads "Not stated", the council's own page or policy gives no figure.

Some councils aren't in the table. Bolton and Rochdale pay for repairs only as part of a lease. Preston funds repairs as part of a lease or a sale to Community Gateway Association, and neither route is a standalone cash grant. Those three, with Bury, Manchester and Wigan, are the six councils that advertise leasing.

Wirral says it doesn't currently offer empty property grants. Blackburn with Darwen, Salford and Wyre mention possible financial help but publish no scheme. Stockport's pages describe no current scheme. Tameside has accepted Greater Manchester money for leasing but publishes no terms for owners, and Trafford's 2019 loan offer isn't on its current pages.

Each name below links straight to that council's entry.

• Blackburn with Darwen
• Blackpool
• Bolton
• Burnley
• Bury
• Cumberland
• Cheshire East
• Cheshire West and Chester
• Chorley
• Fylde
• Halton
• Hyndburn
• Knowsley
• Lancaster
• Liverpool
• Manchester
• Oldham
• Pendle
• Preston
• Ribble Valley
• Rochdale
• Rossendale
• Salford
• Sefton
• South Ribble
• St Helens
• Stockport
• Tameside
• Trafford
• Warrington
• West Lancashire
• Westmorland & Furness
• Wigan
• Wirral
• Wyre

Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council

Grant, loan or lease: nothing with published terms. The council's Empty Homes Week news from March 2026 mentions "financial assistance" without saying what it is.

Register: we found no list or register of empty homes on the council's pages. The same article describes one way to buy a long-empty home there: a Darwen house the council bought by compulsory purchase and planned to sell by sealed bids. By the council's figures, 897 homes in the borough had stood empty for over six months.

Our guide to Blackburn's property market has sold prices, rents and Local Housing Allowance rates for the town.

Blackpool Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. Blackpool's empty homes page offers advice on letting, selling and "securing any available grants", and says an owner can often lose over £5,000 a year by leaving a home empty, in lost rent, council tax, insurance, wear and security.

Other help, only for people living in the home: Blackpool's Warm Homes: Local Grant is aimed at the household living there, so it's no help while a home stands empty. Once someone lives there, it can pay for solid wall insulation, such as external wall insulation, and new windows where a retrofit assessor recommends them.

Our guide to Blackpool's property market has rents and Local Housing Allowance rates for the town.

Bolton Council

Lease and repair: Bolton helps pay for repairs only when the home is then leased to it. Under its new Empty Homes Lease and Repair Scheme, the council puts money towards essential renovation, then leases and manages the home as temporary accommodation. The amount is set after it assesses the property. Its empty home loans are "not operational at present", so the £20,000 terms lower down that page don't apply.

Lease: Bolton's lease management scheme advertises guaranteed rent for the lease, usually five years, paid quarterly in advance at Local Housing Allowance rates, with no fees. It's under review, and some property types may not be taken for now.

Other help, only for people living in the home: Bolton's Warm Homes: Local Grant pays for work to improve energy efficiency ratings of a home to band C. In a rented home the tenant's household has to qualify, so an empty home can't. Gas and oil boilers aren't on its list, so it won't fund gas central heating boilers or oil-central heating systems.

Bolton at Home is one of the housing providers that lease homes from landlords, according to Wigan's leasing page.

Our guide to Bolton's property market lists the Local Housing Allowance rates that the lease scheme pays.

Burnley Council

Loan: Burnley's Housing Renewal Assistance Policy offers interest-free empty homes loans of up to £25,000 in its selective licensing areas and £20,000 elsewhere, while council funding lasts. It sets three main conditions:

• outside the selective licensing areas the home has been empty for at least two years; inside them, ideally six months
• the landlord is accredited with the council's Good Landlord and Agent Scheme, or working towards it
• the home is then let for five years to someone outside the landlord's family, and the loan is repaid over up to ten years (twelve above £20,000), with a charge on the property

The loan won't fund a house of multiple occupation conversion.

Council tax: Burnley's empty homes incentives refund up to six months' council tax paid during the work, as a 100% discount. To qualify, the home must have been empty and unfurnished for 12 months or more, with significant Category 1 hazards. The work has to bring it up to the council's Gold Accreditation Standard, with the home finished, inspected and lived in within six months. There can be no council tax arrears or other debt to the council, and an owner with several homes must have every account up to date.

Other help, only for people living in the home: Burnley's means-tested emergency works grants help owner-occupiers aged 60 or over, or disabled, on income-related benefits. The grants cover jobs such as dangerous wiring or fixing dry rot. They pay up to £10,000 including fees, or £15,000 for major work such as re-roofing. Burnley also has a heating rebate, which pays £400 where a home already has gas-central heating, or £1,000 towards a first system.

Bury Council

Loan: Bury's landlord page lists Empty Property Loans among its incentives, with no amount, interest rate or conditions. Its older empty property strategy says the council "does not have the means to offer empty property grants and/or loans". Only the Private Rented Team can say which is current.

Lease: Bury's landlord page also advertises a council lease and repair scheme for up to five years, with family homes most in demand.

Buying or selling: buyers can join Bury's Empty Property Matchmaker Scheme, and owners can ask whether the council wants to buy.

Our guide to Bury's property market has sold prices and how long homes take to sell in the town.

Cumberland Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. Cumberland's housing strategy for 2025 to 2039 aims to work with partners to "develop funding opportunities for owners". That's an aim, with no terms published yet.

Carlisle is Cumberland's only city, and our guide to Carlisle's property market covers its prices, rents and yields.

Cheshire East Council

Grant or loan: ruled out by the council. Its repairs and adaptations page states "We don't provide any funding for home repairs", and its Empty Homes Loan is no longer taking enquiries.

Also: you can report an empty home on Cheshire East's empty homes page, which mentions leasing to a property management company as general advice rather than a council scheme of its own.

Our guide to Cheshire's property market covers prices and rental yields across both councils.

Cheshire West & Chester Council

Grant: Cheshire West and Chester's Empty Home Grant pays 50% of essential repairs, such as rewiring, damp proofing or heating, up to £15,000, while funding lasts. The home must have been empty for 12 months, be in council tax bands A to D, and currently fall short of the government's Decent Homes Standard.

The council's 2024 housing assistance policy sets five main conditions:

• Local Housing Allowance rent on a 12-month tenancy (the 2024 policy's wording), with the council nominating tenants for three years
• the landlord joins the Cheshire Landlord Accreditation Scheme
• approval before work starts, with the work finished and the home lived in within 12 months of approval
• no payment until the home is occupied
• a finished home that meets the standard with an EPC rating of C or higher

Since 1 May 2026, new assured tenancies in England run on a rolling basis and can't have a fixed end date, according to the government guide for landlords. Most private lets are assured tenancies, so ask the council how it applies the 12-month condition now.

Conversion grant: a separate conversion grant pays 50% of the cost of turning a building that has been empty for 12 months into homes, up to £15,000 a flat and £75,000 a scheme, with planning permission. The leaflet asks for five years of nominations, the 2024 policy three.

Buying: accredited landlords can join its Empty Homes Matchmaker Service.

Chester is the borough's main city, and our guide to Chester's property market has rents and how long homes there take to sell.

Chorley Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. Chorley's long-term empty properties page offers advice to owners, enforcement as a last resort, and help checking whether council tax can be reduced on an uninhabitable home so the saving can go on the works.

Letting help: Chorley's paper bond scheme gives a landlord a written guarantee in place of a cash deposit, for low-income tenants who are homeless or at risk of it. It covers the deposit only; the council doesn't lease the home.

Fylde Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found for owners. Fylde's empty homes page describes a project where housing associations buy empty homes, renovate them and let them as affordable housing, and owners can fill in a form to be put in touch.

Halton Borough Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. Halton's private sector housing page covers advice for landlords and tenants, repair standards and HMO licensing.

Hyndburn Borough Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. Hyndburn's empty homes page offers advice from its Empty Property Officer on renting, selling or repairing a home left empty for six months or more. For long-empty homes in serious disrepair, it may consider an enforced sale or compulsory purchase.

Knowsley Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. Knowsley's empty house page offers advice on renting, conversions and finding a builder, and runs a Matchmaker Scheme that links owners who want to sell with buyers.

Lancaster City Council

Grant, loan or lease: nothing with published terms. Lancaster's March 2026 news release reports 63 long-term empty homes brought back into use in 2025, by working with owners, carrying out urgent repairs and, in the worst cases, forcing a sale.

Council tax: according to the same news release, Lancaster doubles the bill once a home has been empty for a year, triples it after five years and charges four times the bill after ten.

Our guide to Lancaster's property market has sold prices and how long homes take to sell in the city.

Liverpool City Council

Grant: Liverpool's Empty Homes Grant pays £5,000 to £20,000 per property for the repairs needed to make an empty home liveable. It doesn't cover amenities, furnishings or furniture. The council has put over £7 million into the scheme and aims to bring 365 homes back into use with it. These are the four main conditions for applying:

• you have an owner's interest in the property, and it is empty when you apply
• it has been empty for at least 12 months
• it has no financial charges against it (the page doesn't say what counts, so check with the council whether a mortgage does), and no council tax arrears
• you haven't faced enforcement action for housing offences

Each owner can make only a limited number of applications each financial year, and a property that has had a grant can't apply again for five years.

In return, for three years the council chooses the tenants and the rent matches the Local Housing Allowance rate. The council also registers a restriction on the property's title for the grant amount, which it describes as insurance. The restriction comes off after three years if the conditions are kept, and stays if the owner sells or evicts the tenant within those three years.

Before tenants move in, you need the right selective or HMO licence, and the home must be free of Category 1 and 2 hazards, with Gas Safe, electrical and energy performance certificates where they apply. Applications go through the council's online licensing portal with quotes for the work, and homes in selective licensing wards come first when the council has to choose.

Register: we found no list of empty homes on Liverpool's pages. Its empty homes page lets anyone report one, and says Liverpool can charge a council tax premium of up to 300% on empty, substantially unfurnished homes.

Our guide to Liverpool's property market lists the Local Housing Allowance rates the grant ties the rent to, next to typical rents in the city.

Manchester City Council

Grant or loan: none for empty homes on Manchester's pages, but it runs a register for property investors and will consider leasing an empty home.

Register: Manchester's Empty Homes Investor Register is free, and members are told about empty properties that may interest them. You join by emailing the Empty Homes team, which sends a link to the form. Owners who want to sell to property investors can also ask the team to help through the register. Anyone can report an empty home in the city, and the team then talks to the owner.

Lease: an owner can lease the property to the council for an agreed period, with the council managing it. No lease length, rent or repair terms are published. Salix Homes, another provider on Wigan's list, covers Manchester.

Our guide to Manchester's property market has rents and Local Housing Allowance rates across the city.

Oldham Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. Oldham's empty homes page offers a free visit from a technical officer to talk through the options, help finding tenants and a possible rent deposit guarantee. Its Home Improve Loan is only for low-income homeowners repairing the home they live in, and has a waiting list of up to four years.

ForHousing covers Oldham, according to Wigan's list of leasing providers.

Our guide to Oldham's property market has sold prices and rents across the borough.

Pendle Borough Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. Pendle's draft Empty Homes Strategy 2025 to 2030 says the council "does not have the means to offer empty property grants and/or loans". It's a draft put to councillors, and it mentions working with housing associations that can buy, repair or lease empty homes.

Preston City Council

Repair and lease: Preston pays for repairs only through its Making Homes from Houses Project with Community Gateway Association, and publishes no amount. It's for homes typically empty for over a year and needing repair, and it offers two routes:

• Sell: Community Gateway buys the home and the council funds the renovation.
• Repair and lease: the council helps fund repairs carried out by Community Gateway, which then leases the home for a set number of years at an affordable rent to people on the waiting list. You get the rent minus management costs, and the home back at the end.

Our guide to Preston's property market compares rents and yields across the city's postcodes.

Ribble Valley Borough Council

Grants: Ribble Valley's landlord page offers two grants, each paying 50% of the work up to £15,000 a flat or £20,000 for a two or three-bedroom home:

• Renovation grant: for a home in council tax bands A to D that isn't currently fit to live in. It must meet the decent home standard on completion.
• Conversion grant: for turning unused space, such as rooms above shops, into rented homes.

In return, the home is let for five years. The council sends details of three tenants from its waiting list and you pick one, at a rent in line with Local Housing Allowance. The page invites people buying a run-down or empty property, as well as owners, to call. The grant is approved on two sets of itemised estimates and paid after a final inspection, with interim payments available on request.

Rochdale Borough Council

Lease: we found leasing on Rochdale's pages, but no grant or loan. With extra money from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, its empty properties page invites owners to lease an empty home to one of its approved housing organisations for an agreed period. Rochdale advertises guaranteed rent for that period, paid in advance, with the tenancy managed and minor refurbishment funded by the council.

Also: the council may buy a home at market value if it has the funding. Its empty properties page says it can also confirm that a home has been empty for over two years, which is one of the conditions for the 5% VAT rate on renovation work.

Our guide to Rochdale's property market has rents and Local Housing Allowance rates for the borough.

Rossendale Borough Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. We found no Rossendale page setting out an empty homes service or money for owners. The council's contact page lists how to reach customer services about a particular property.

Salford City Council

Grant, loan or lease: nothing with published terms. Salford's empty property owners page says its help for owners may include financial assistance, without saying what kind or how much. Wigan's leasing page names ForHousing and Salix Homes for Salford.

Our guide to Salford's property market has sold prices and how long homes take to sell in the city.

Sefton Council

Grant or loan: the council says none is available. Its housing assistance policy lists Empty Homes Assistance as "currently unavailable". Its Matchmakers Scheme has ended too, as its empty homes plan for 2025 to 2030 records.

South Ribble Borough Council

Grant: South Ribble's empty properties policy offers renovation grants of £4,500 per bedroom. The home must be empty, in council tax bands A to D, not currently fit to live in, and a type of home the council's housing options team needs.

The conditions match Ribble Valley's: five years' letting from completion, a choice of three council-nominated tenants, rent in line with Local Housing Allowance, and a written or cash deposit bond from the council. The policy dates from June 2021 and says grants "may be available", so approval isn't automatic.

St Helens Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. St Helens' empty homes toolkit starts with advice and negotiation and moves to enforcement where owners won't act.

Our guide to the St Helens property market compares asking prices with what homes actually sell for.

Stockport Council

Grant or loan: none found on its current pages. Stockport's Empty to Plenty pages, part of a Greater Manchester campaign, are still online but were last updated on 14 January 2020, so no current scheme is confirmed. They describe three options:

• selling to a housing association through a purchase and repair scheme
• renting through a housing provider such as Stockport Homes; the council's page describes the provider repairing and managing the home, and taking those costs out of a guaranteed rental income
• an Empty Property Investors List of property investors and landlords who want to buy empty homes in Stockport, which the council sends to owners who ask

So if you were looking for an empty homes register in Stockport, the list there is of buyers rather than homes. A property investor or landlord on it gets put in front of owners who ask for it. Three Sixty Living, part of the Stockport Homes Group, is the Stockport provider on Wigan's list.

Our guide to Stockport's property market shows how long homes there take to sell.

Tameside Council

Grant, loan or lease: nothing with published terms. Tameside's empty homes page offers help selling, renting or repairing an empty home through "trusted local partners", and gives an email address for its empty homes team.

Leasing money: on 1 July 2026 Tameside accepted £489,707 from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority for an Empty Homes and Leasing Programme running from April 2026 to March 2027, according to the council decision. Its pages publish no terms for owners yet.

Our guide to Tameside's property market has rents and Local Housing Allowance rates for the borough.

Trafford Borough Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found on its current pages. In a 2019 news release, Trafford offered owners interest-free loans of up to £10,000 for repairs. No current page confirms that loan still runs.

Our guide to Trafford's property market has sold prices and rents across the borough.

Warrington Council

Loan: Warrington's empty properties page offers a vacant homes low cost loan of up to £10,000 towards bringing an empty home back into use as a private rental, subject to terms and to funding. It gives no interest rate, fees or repayment period.

Finding an owner: if you've spotted an empty house you'd like to buy, the same page points you to HM Land Registry for the owner's details. Where the Land Registry doesn't have them, the council may pass on a letter from you.

Our guide to Warrington's property market has rents and how long homes take to sell in the town.

West Lancashire Council

Grant, loan or lease: none found. West Lancashire's empty homes page offers to inspect an empty home and say whether it's suitable to let, and its Private Sector Housing Team keeps a list of vetted builders. The same page says no enforcement action will be taken against an owner who tells the team they're selling or renovating.

Westmorland & Furness Council

Grant: Westmorland and Furness's Private Sector Housing Assistance Renewal Policy offers an Empty Homes Grant of up to £15,000 including fees, matched pound for pound by the owner, with no means test. The home must have been empty for at least 12 months, be in council tax bands A to D, and need work to reach the council's decent homes standard. The grant is for owners who will live in the home or let it, and can't be used to get a home ready to sell.

Once the work is done, the home must be lived in within 12 weeks and stay occupied for at least a year; a landlord charges the Local Housing Allowance rate for those 12 months. The grant has to be paid back on a sale within ten years, or if a condition is broken.

Oddly, the policy's "Eligible Works" list names moving costs such as stamp duty and removal fees, which don't match the grant's repair purpose. Only the council can say whether moving costs are covered.

Wigan Council

Lease: we found no empty homes grant on Wigan's pages, but its Ethical Lettings Agency takes homes on a long-term lease. The council's own agency has run since early 2020, manages around 90 homes, and advertises full management and a guaranteed, uninterrupted monthly income. The page gives no lease length.

The same page points landlords elsewhere in Greater Manchester to housing providers that lease and manage homes: Bolton at Home in Bolton, ForHousing in Salford and Oldham, Salix Homes in Salford and Manchester, and Three Sixty Living in Stockport.

Council tax: Wigan's discounts page offers a council tax discount of 75% for up to 12 months while a home needs major repairs to be habitable. After a year empty and unfurnished, the bill doubles, and it keeps rising the longer the home stays empty.

Our guide to Wigan's property market lists the Local Housing Allowance rates for the borough.

Wirral Council

Grant: not on offer. Wirral's empty properties page states "We do not currently offer empty property grants."

Developers List: what Wirral does run is a Developers List. When the owner of a run-down empty home asks for help selling it, the council tells the developers on the list, who can view it and make sealed bids. You join by emailing an application form to the private sector housing team. That makes it the nearest thing Wirral has to an empty homes register, though it only covers homes whose owners want to sell.

Anyone can report an empty home through the council's Empty Property Team referral form.

Wyre Council

Grant, loan or lease: nothing with published terms. Wyre's empty homes service standards say advice for owners may include "access to grant or loan funding for repairs", but name no scheme, amount or conditions.

The council keeps its own list of empty homes and deals with the worst first, but it won't give owners' details to the public.

Empty & Derelict Homes Additional Support

Outside the council schemes, the main national help is a lower VAT rate on renovating a long-empty home. HMRC's stamp duty guidance gives no such break for a home in poor condition.

Reduced VAT

A builder can charge VAT at 5% instead of the standard rate for renovating a home nobody has lived in during the two years before work starts, under section 8 of VAT Notice 708. It's a rate the contractor applies to qualifying work, not a grant.

Under HMRC's evidence rules, a letter from a council's empty property officer confirming two years empty is enough proof by itself, and Rochdale is one North West council that offers that evidence.

Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT)

HMRC's stamp duty manual says there's no relief or lower rate for "uninhabitable" homes, and warns that a very high share of refund claims on them are wrong. A home needing a new roof, rewiring, a boiler, damp work or structural repairs still counts as a home for stamp duty, even with several of those at once.

To work out the stamp duty on a purchase, our calculators cover each nation of Great Britain:

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

National Funding and Council Tax on Empty Homes

We found no government grant an individual owner in England can apply for to do up an empty home. In the North West, the grants and loans we found all come from councils.

The national money goes through the Social and Affordable Homes Programme for 2026 to 2036, which Homes England runs outside London. It can fund empty homes bought or leased, repaired and let as social and affordable housing. The organisations that can bid are registered providers, councils, housebuilders and developers, charities and community-led groups, and anyone who will be the landlord of the rented homes it funds must be registered with the Regulator of Social Housing. It pays for affordable homes, not for a landlord renovating a house to let on the open market.

Wales runs things differently. The Welsh Government's Empty Homes Grant pays up to £25,000 in the Welsh councils that take part, with the owner putting in at least 15%. The home must have been empty for at least 12 months, and the owner must then live there as their only home for at least five years. We found no English equivalent, so it only helps with a home in Wales.

The tax on an empty home has gone up too. Since April 2024, under the government's guidance for councils, a council can charge extra council tax on a home that has been empty and substantially unfurnished for a year, down from two. Charging it is each council's choice, and since April 2025 some homes, such as one being marketed for sale or let, are excepted for a time. Lancaster, Liverpool and Wigan all charge it. Our page on how to apply for a council tax exemption explains which empty homes pay no council tax at all for a while.

Holding costs are what I've seen surprise new landlords most: mortgage interest and council tax on a home that isn't earning. With a premium on top, every month a refurbishment overruns costs more.

Across the North West, 44,382 homes had stood empty for more than six months at the 2025 count, according to the Council Taxbase 2025 statistics. Our page How many empty homes are in the UK? has the count for every council in England. Councils may soon be able to step in sooner, too. The government announced plans on 27 September 2026 to let councils seek an empty dwelling management order, which hands them the running of the home, once it has stood empty six months instead of two years. No start date has been given.

Our guide on how to find houses that need renovation walks through the Rightmove and Zoopla searches that bring them up, and our round-up of different property tools covers five apps and Chrome extensions for researching a property.

A renovation is one way into a rental. Our listings of investment properties, buy-to-let property for sale and below-market-value properties show prices and yields for rental investment homes, some still being built. Those figures are something to compare the full cost of a renovation against.

Other Regions

We have guides to empty homes grants in three other regions, and the official count of empty homes for every council in England:

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

Our home page on property investment in the UK lists our buy-to-let guides town by town, for anyone weighing up an empty home outside these regions.

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