Covering the whole of Scotland, this so-called ‘matchmaker scheme’ allows owners of empty homes to upload details of their properties to a website through which anyone, such as first time buyers, families, developers or local authorities, can make purchasing enquiries.

The portal is hosted by the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership and has been developed as part of a £2m investment this year to recruit additional empty homes officers and fund initiatives that will accelerate the pace and numbers of empty homes that are brought back into use.

Scottish Housing Secretary Màiri McAllan says: “If you have an empty home to sell, this new portal is for you.

“Making best use of existing housing stock is central to tackling the housing emergency. Bringing owners and buyers together is a great way of adding to the overall housing supply, be that for affordable housing or use on the private market and it complements our ambitious house building programme.

“We are already making progress in turning around empty properties. Over the past 15 years we have helped return almost 13,000 privately owned homes to use and last year we saw 2,066 homes brought back in a single year, the highest in a year to date.

“I would encourage anyone who has a home lying empty to use this new scheme and seek advice from the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership and their local council to bring their home back into use.”

Properties can be listed free of charge, and local schemes promoting this ‘matchmaking’ already operate in Aberdeenshire, the Borders, Fife, East Lothian, Argyll and Bute, Orkney and South Ayrshire. The majority of these will wind down their schemes in place of this new national portal. Aberdeen City will continue their local scheme.

In Scottish law, it is a legal requirement for any property which is being actively marketed for sale to have a home report. Under this new scheme, owners can list their property on the portal without a home report but must not enter any negotiations with potential purchasers prior to obtaining one.

If a property is for sale through an estate agent, the asking price must not diverge from what is included on the portal.

Tags: Housing Shortage & Affordability, Scotland

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Property matchmaking service launched by government