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Liverpool signs up to empty homes scheme
Loans up to £15k to bring some of city's 7,500 properties back into use
THERE are 7,500 homes lying empty in Liverpool. Now Government-backed loans are being offered to their owners in a bid to bring some of them back into use.
The city council has signed up to to the The National Empty Homes Loan Fund. Launched today, with a grant of £3 million from central government, the fund aims to reduce the problem of England’s 710,000 vacant residential properties.
Liverpool is one of 39 local authorities selected to be part of the scheme led by the charity Empty Homes, in partnership with the Government and the Ecology Building Society.
Cycle
Owners of empty homes in the city will be able to apply for loans of up to £15,000 to help bring their properties back into affordable use.
Currently, the council says, owners of empty homes are often unable to access funds to bring them back into use, creating a vicious cycle of decline in areas with high numbers of empty properties.
NEHLF will provide access to secured loans at a fixed 5 percent interest rate, and will enable owners to renovate the property to Decent Homes standard.
The scheme has been funded and is being administered by Ecology Building Society, a specialist mortgage lender that supports sustainable communities. It is available to individuals aged 18 and over who own a property that has been empty for six months or more.
David Ireland OBE, Chief Executive of Empty Homes, said: “We hope the fund will enable hundreds of empty homes to be brought back up to standard and back into the housing stock.”
The council says its housing team has drawn up a hit-list of the top 1,000 empty homes in the city, and is now taking firm action. Owners are being encouraged to bring their properties back into use as quickly as possible, and are being informed that “enforcement action” will be taken if they don't.
£1
Liverpool has also secured £14 million in Government Clusters of Empty Homes Funding, which is being used to revitalise hundreds of properties.
Meanwhile, the successful applicants of the Homes For A Pound scheme - which saw the council sell off 20 properties for £1 in the Granby and Picton areas of Liverpool - are due to be announced in the near future. More than 1,000 people applied.
Full details of the National Empty Homes Loan Fund can be found here
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Lending public money to landlords who can afford to sit around with their properties empty for six months or more? Oh well it IS a Tory government isn't it.
Its good to see something happening to empty houses in Liverpool, good on you all.
It would be better in he long term if they were to become social rented housing run by the Council or Housing Associations so that problem neighbours can be shown the red card and the areas made desirable places to live. The buy-to-let shower bring only misery and blight to areas because they aren't fussy who they let in as long as they pay up.
So these people who can afford to rent a home but who you think are a blight where should they live? do you have some sort of ghetto lined up for them somewhere?
What a fool you are taxpayer. As part of the buy to let shower I can assure you that we are fussy about who we let in as they are far more likely to pay up.
Yes I am a fool. Millions of us coughing up our hard-earned so the Government can line your pockets with it. And we accept it. Fools indeed.
£14,000,000 plus the £20 from the sale of empty properties from Picton and Granby. At this rate we'll be able to afford another farm in Knowsley. We could call it an investment, and point to central government as the architects of our endeavour, saying we're complying with their wishes.......Who makes it all up?.......Starbucks maybe.
The rent for a little old terraced house in an unfashionable area is now £600 per month. That is ridiculous. This is where all the Housing Benefit is going.