Help for the neighbours of empty homes

Bradford Council’s Empty Homes and Loans Team works with the owners of empty properties to help bring them back into use. The team has a number of measures to help with this and in some cases enforcement action is necessary. The team also respond to referrals from the public, particularly from those directly affected by problems with an empty property.

Please note that we can only deal with residential properties and cannot handle enquiries or advise about empty commercial property.

What happens when I contact the Council?

• Your enquiry or complaint will be logged and allocated to an officer in the Empty Homes and Loans Team
• The officers investigate all legitimate enquiries relating to empty properties in the Bradford District
• We will not disclose your details to a third party
• We aim to make an initial response to enquiries within 3 working days

When contacting this Service to make an enquiry, try to give as many details as possible, including:

• The full address of the empty property and name of the owner, if known.
• Details of the problem or nuisance caused by the empty property

The more information we have, the more we can do to help.

How we will handle your enquiry

If the empty property is insecure or causing a nuisance, the officer will visit and start enforcement action to deal with this problem. We will try to deal with this in co-operation with the owner where possible. Any other issues will also be referred to the appropriate Council Service or agency.

Also during the visit, the officer will carry out a risk assessment on the property, that looks at the length of time it has been empty, the type of property, its condition and any nuisance being caused. It will be scored and placed in a priority order based on this assessment.

While we try to work with owners to bring empty properties back into use, it is not an offence to leave a property unoccupied. The Council only takes enforcement action as a last resort where the property is causing nuisance or blight to an area.

If enforcement action is not appropriate we have Empty Homes Advisors who will attempt to make contact with the owner to create an 'Empty Home Action Plan' to get the property occupied.

There are other agencies and Departments who can help with associated problems or issues that you may wish to consider contacting. These include:

• Police (101 for non emergency calls)
• Yorkshire Water (0845 1242424)
• Neighbourhood Wardens (01274 431000)
• your local Councillor.