Action on Empty Homes

London Buy to Leave

The London 'buy to leave' and wealth investment project aims to start a public conversation about how wealth investment distorts London housing delivery, creating a housing market that does not meet Londoners' housing needs. Read more
'Not the right housing'

Increase in long-term empties discredits rise in house building, says Action on Empty Homes, as London empty homes numbers rise to 25,000. Speculation mounts that unsold newbuild is contributing as Hounslow tops national figures with 158% rise. Read more
Empty Homes England 2019 is available now

Our new annual report on the state of the empty homes problem in England reports the second consecutive annual increase in numbers to over 216,000 and the fastest rise in a decade Read more
Take Action

Action on Empty Homes wants to work with all those who aim to tackle the problem of empty homes across England. Whether you want to become a local contact, volunteer in the national office, or invite a speaker to your community group, please get in touch! Read more

We are focused on bringing the 226,000 long-term empty homes in England back into use for people with housing needs

Current Projects

We are developing a toolkit for community-led empty homes projects and working on tackling wealth investor ‘buy to leave’ in London. We are also building a national coalition to call for government investment in empty homes.

Homes Without Residents - new report

Our London housing project looks at 'buy to leave' and the impact of wealth investment in residential property. Raising critical questions over 100,000 London homes sucked out of residential supply, the role of Airbnb and so-called 'second homes'. Includes international survey of policy responses.

Our impact

120	120 local authorities take part in Empty Homes Week
9,000	Our campaign for the Government to fund schemes to bring empty homes into use was adopted. Between 2012 and 2015 over 9,000 new homes were created. We need this re-started
200%	Council Tax can now be doubled on homes left two years empty. We campaigned against discounts for empty homes and support councils implementing new premiums

Support Action on Empty Homes

We rely on support from individuals and grant funders. Want to support us? Then click the donate box at the top of the page.

Latest events

Empty Homes Week 2019

Empty Homes Week 2019 took place from the 23rd September 2019 until the 29th September 2019. In 2018 over 100 councils took part, in 2019 120 councils launched new initiatives or publicised action in National Empty Homes Week. Contact your council for local events and information. Read more
Start: 23^rd September, 2019 at 12:00am

End: 29^th September, 2019 at 11:45pm

Published: 24^th April, 2019

Updated: 3^rd October, 2019

Author:

Location: National Event - each local council participating will organise local activity, National news and comment from Action on Empty Homes, London, N1 9JP National Event - each local council participating will organise local activity National news and comment from Action on Empty Homes London N1 9JP National Event - each local council participating will organise local activity, National news and comment from Action on Empty Homes, London, N1 9JP
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Latest stories

Antony Fletcher - founder of the Empty Homes Agency: 1929 - 2019

Antony Fletcher was the founder and moving force behind Action On Empty Homes and it is with great sadness that we have to report his death. Read more
A new Toolkit for communities and local authorities

Brighid Carey outlines our new project developing a Toolkit which aims to help bring local authorities and communities together into informed, knowledgeable partnerships to bring empty homes into use. Read more
Estimating ‘buy to leave’ in Kensington & Chelsea

Data from the latest Council Taxbase reveals Kensington & Chelsea has the highest proportion of long-term empty homes in London. Furthermore, 10% of the borough's homes are classed as 'second homes'. Chujan Sivathasan uses data from Jonathan Bourne at UCL and draws on Dr Rex Atkinson's work on 'Anchoring Wealth: The grounded impact of international wealth chains on housing markets in London' Read more

Our impact

120

9,000

200%

Latest events

Latest stories