Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government monitors the numbers of empty homes annually when it publishes the statistical bulletin on empty properties, unoccupied exemptions and second homes. The data is sourced from council tax base returns collected from local authorities and includes stock of all tenures i.e. social housing, private rented housing, and owner-occupied homes. Further information is available from the Scottish Government website at: Second homes and empty properties in September 2024 - gov.scot.

Short term empty homes are a natural feature of the housing market. However when homes in private ownership lay empty for longer than 6 months the reasons can be complex and building relationships with owners is often the key to unlocking them. That is why we continue to invest in the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership and our network of empty homes officers. Our investment of £3.7 million has helped to bring more than 11,000 privately owned empty homes to active use since 2010. Building on this success we are investing a further £2 million in 2025-26 that will enhance the support local authorities receive from the Partnership, increase the numbers of empty homes officers and fund a range of initiatives aimed at overcoming common barriers. This record level of investment seeks to increase the scale of work taking place and enable better targeting of resources to help return more homes to active use in places where they have the most impact. On enforcement we are taking forward a compulsory purchase reform programme which aims to make the process clearer, fairer and faster. In the meantime, the Partnership are working with local authorities to increase the use of the existing system through the development of a new hub project which aims to provide support to help identify suitable cases and bring them forward.

For homes in the social sector we have placed a specific focus on bringing voids back in to use and are already seeing the impacts of this work with numbers reducing significantly. In Edinburgh, for example, the Council’s management information shows that void levels have been cut by over 50% since June 2023. This progress is down to work of local authorities together with the £40m acquisition and social voids funding which Scottish Government has provided. We are now taking this learning to other areas.