New empty homes standard gets green light

A successful scheme that supports tenants with the decoration of their new home when they move into an empty property got approval to be rolled out permanently across the district by Newark and Sherwood District Council members at a Cabinet meeting yesterday.

A six-month pilot scheme for tenants tested a new Lettable Standard for all empty homes. The scheme was put together after the Council found property condition featured strongly in feedback from tenants.

Currently, the District Council let around 400 homes each year and each home is inspected against the Lettable Standard.  

The pilot involved 242 empty properties and looked at preparation for decorating the homes before tenants moved in. Tenants were then given the option to use a “Starting Well’ fund which is an offer of vouchers up to £500 per property to use towards carpets, decorating materials or white goods.

Improvements were also made internally too so that any major works on a property that were scheduled within two years would be completed whilst the home was empty.

Of 242 empty homes inspected during the pilot, 29% (71) had decoration preparation works carried out before tenants moved in. Out of the 53 tenants contacted, 83.02% were satisfied with the standard of decoration preparation. Of 227 empty homes let during the pilot, 43% (98) of tenants received an allocation from the Starting Well fund. Around 47% of tenants said they would have struggled to carpet, decorate or buy an appliance for their home without additional support.

At the end of March 2022, the year-end satisfaction figure for lettings was 98%, compared with 93% for March 2021, showing an increase in tenant satisfaction. There were also no complaints received about the new Lettable Standard.

Tim Wendels, Portfolio Holder for Homes and Health at Newark and Sherwood District Council, said: “During the difficult financial climate for everyone we wanted to review our Lettable Standard and see where we could make improvements to help our tenants.  Supporting tenants with funds to meet their individual priorities means we can help take away some of the challenges of moving into a new home.

“These new enhancements to the Lettable Standard also contribute to the District Council’s Community Plan objective to ‘create more and better quality homes thorough their roles as landlord, developer and planning authority’.

“Pilot schemes like this are a great way for us to test the waters before we fully commit. The feedback we’ve gained clearly show it would be beneficial for our tenants and we hope this will continue to be reflected in our excellent satisfaction ratings with the service.”