1 in 20 English homes are regularly unoccupied, and Outer London has the highest rate of unoccupied properties in England, with around 1 in 3 dwellings left regularly vacant. These are just some of the figures revealed by UK conveyancing solicitors, Bird & Co, in their recent study.

They compared the new Census 2021 data showing the number of homes in each Local Authority containing at least one usual resident with the ONS data on the number of dwellings in each area.

Calculating the difference between these figures, and dividing them by the total number of dwellings, Bird & Co discovered a percentage for unoccupied homes in each Local Authority. In England, the following top 10 inoccupation percentages were revealed:
City of London – 30.98%
Westminster – 25.01%
Kensington and Chelsea – 24.18%
South Hams – 15.28%
North Norfolk – 15.13%
South Lakeland – 14.97%
Scarborough – 14.53%
Richmondshire – 13.77%
King’s Lynn and West Norfolk – 13.32%
Camden – 12.93%
Considering the growing rate of homelessness in the UK, these statistics are worrying, especially when we take into account the average inoccupancy across England and Wales of 4.9% and 6.7%, respectively.