New Home Bonus

House building rates are at the lowest since the 1920s. Other than building more homes, reusing empty homes provides one of the few other sources of housing. What’s more it can do so at an affordable price. Surveys have shown that the average cost of renovating an empty home is about £10,000.

Reusing empty homes can also have environmental benefits. Recent research by Empty Homes’ New Tricks with Old Bricks found that renovation of an empty house creates about a third of the CO2 emissions of building a new house.

The New Home Bonus is designed to empower local authorities by giving them incentives to improve growth within the housing industry.  The New Homes Bonus will provide local authorities with the means to mitigate the strain of population growth by supporting councils to bring empty properties back to use and create more affordable new housing.

Local authorities will not be penalised for demolishing long term empty properties providing that regeneration also occurs and will be paid a bonus for an increase in the number of properties in use - either as new properties or empties brought back into use.  Added to this for every new home created the government will match the council tax raised on each new house for a period of six years - for a band D home that would amount to about £1400.