Empty homes:

From Wasted Empties to Hope for the Future

Finders International are proud sponsors of National Empty Homes Week 2026

Our free Empty Homes Service supports local authorities by tracing heirs worldwide and helping councils bring long-term vacant property back into use. During Empty Homes Week we’ll host a webinar on our Empty Homes Crisis. Explore our full range of support in our Public Sector Services brochure

Making a difference in our  communities

Bringing one empty home back into use counts as much towards housing targets as building a new one does.

In the year 2024-25, councils in England spent £2.8 billion on temporary accommodation. Most spent on cramped, unsuitable housing, placing increased stress on families, disrupting children’s education and adversely impacting health and wellbeing - costing us all more both now and in future.   

How much more effective would it be to invest just half of this £2.8billion on bringing empty homes into use to prevent homelessness and provide good quality homes in the first place? It’s time we started solving our housing crisis.

Retrofitting empty homes produces substantially lower carbon emissions than building new homes. If we want to keep to climate targets, it’s a no-brainer. We need both new homes and to improve our older ones ..and the last thing we need is a million wasted empties.

We already know that the government target of building 300,000 new homes a year could blast through the whole country’s carbon emission allowance. However, retrofitting empty homes back into use would use between 50 - 80% less in carbon emissions whilst also creating more energy efficient, greener housing - and crucially these will also be homes that are cheaper and more confortable to live in .

If we are serious about fighting climate change, whilst hitting housing targets, empty homes can help. Read more about empty homes retrofit here.

3.17 million households in England are in fuel poverty. Retrofitting empty homes offers a way to provide safer, warmer homes to communities.

Government Statistics for England show over 3 million households in England in fuel poverty. And the majority of English homes all need retrofit to become cheaper and healthier to live in. When in fuel poverty, households struggle to pay their bills, often attempting to manage down energy usage by not heating homes or cooking meals. The impact of cold on health and well-being, including mental health, are well-documented and drive up spending on health services. Retrofitting empties is a start - a way to build skills and supply chains and to drive skills up using the very homes that need it most. You can read more about empty home retrofit here, it offers opportunities to create the genuinely healthy and affordable homes we need , as well as offering community-based demonstration spaces for locals to understand the impact retrofitting their own homes could have on their fuel bills.

Each year, National Empty Homes Week demonstrates the great work Councils and communities are doing to bring wasted empties back into use and to take action on empty homes which negatively impact their neighbourhoods. It offers a focus and allows us all to ask are we doing enough and can we do more..

We also use the opportunity to back councils in calling on Government to improve their powers and add investment. We want to reverse the growing waste of empty homes, to start chipping away at our housing shortage, instead of seeing ever more wasted homes adding to it - last year numbers of long-term empty homes rose 14% to a level above that during the pandemic (when the housing market was closed). Surely we can’t let this waste continue to grow, year after year after year?

So in 2026 our main focus is on the opportunity retrofitting empty Homes represents to offer hope for the future. Below, we use case studies to show what we mean by this. We welcome other great examples from councils and communities working to bring empty homes back into use, helping local people live healthier, better lives, and highlighting the role that empty homes can play in helping us all to minimise climate breakdown and add healthy and genuinely affordable housing supply

If you would like to share case studies of bringing empty homes back into use, please email us at info@emptyhomes.com

Case studies

You can download our National Empty Homes Week 2026 logos here:

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