Partnership approach to Empty Property Reviews

Since 2017, we’ve partnered with Reigate and Banstead Borough Council to deliver our Empty Property Review Service. These reviews check that only genuinely empty properties are receiving council tax discounts, helping to maximise revenue. In addition, by encouraging empty properties back into use, councils can also benefit from the government’s New Homes Bonus.

We use local authority information and credit reference data to identify which properties would benefit from further checks and inspections. If our letters receive no response, a visit to these properties is vital to verify the status of each property.

Improving the property visit process

From our work with a previous partner, we felt that local authority expertise would improve the overall effectiveness of our reviews. Teams with revenues and benefits experience, in particular, would be able to identify issues, deal sensitively with any occupants and understand the importance of keeping accurate records.

We have a long-standing relationship with Reigate and Banstead as they have used our revenues and benefits software for more than 20 years. So in 2017, with the council keen to generate additional income to benefits its residents, we came together to deliver our first set of reviews.

Accurate, sensitive and efficient service

Since then, we’ve delivered 23 Empty Property Reviews for councils across the country and generated more than £26.5m in New Homes Bonus. In that time, we’ve delivered 100% accurate results, with no properties classed as occupied needing to be reclassified as empty. In one authority, as many as 50% of homes whose owners were claiming an empty property discount were found to be occupied.

With the visits managed by Reigate and Banstead’s experienced team, we’re able to report back to our customers on any vulnerability issues or anti-social behaviour, providing an added-value service.

Working together for continuous improvement

We developed a case management system, Perform, to share accurate information on the status of the review with customers. Reigate and Banstead also use a software tool rather than paper-based forms to manage their property inspections, enabling rapid upload of the results to Perform.

This has led to an increase in capacity over time, with the team able to review 50-60 properties a day per officer, compared to 30 before.