An empty home is a privately owned house or flat that hasn’t been lived in for more than six months. These homes aren’t used as someone’s main place to live, and they’re not up for sale or rent.
Empty homes can cause problems in the local area. They might look messy or unsafe, attract vandalism or fly-tipping, and cause issues like pests or overgrown gardens.
In Portsmouth, space for new housing is limited, so every home matters. Bringing empty homes back into use helps provide more places to live, makes neighbourhoods nicer, saves money, and helps the environment by reusing buildings.
Our strategy
There are around 950 empty private homes in Portsmouth. We’ve created a new strategy to reduce this number.
Read our empty home strategy.