These will be available to the owners of properties to improve them to the Decent Home Standard and bring them back into use.

Empty Property Grants will be considered to improve empty homes or to convert empty homes to provide one or more extra homes.

To qualify, the empty homes must have been un-occupied for at least 6 months prior to the grant application date.

When an empty home is being improved or converted, work to meet the parts of the Decent Home Standard that landlords are not legally required to meet, i.e. criterion C: reasonably modern facilities and criterion D: thermal comfort, will be considered for grant aid. In all cases any necessary fees will also be considered for grant aid.

In all cases, grant will not be paid unless the property complies with all relevant legal requirements when the work is completed. These legal requirements include meeting the Decent Home Standard criterion A: statutory minimum standard for housing and criterion B: reasonable state of repair and having planning and building regulation approval, where necessary.

Landlords accredited by the Bournemouth Responsible Landlord and Tenant Accreditation Scheme will receive a maximum grant for each self-contained home of £8,000. Other landlords will receive a maximum grant of £6,000 for each self-contained home. In all cases, the grant will be based on reasonable costs.

It will be a condition of a grant that a landlord does one of the following:

• enters into an agreement with the Council allowing the Council to refer prospective tenants for the property. The agreement will require that the landlord accepts applicants for accommodation referred to him by the Council, including when new vacancies occur during the term of the agreement. The landlord may reject an applicant  as unsuitable if any of these circumstances  apply:
• the circumstances of the prospective tenant are not appropriate for the property in question
• prospective tenants would be placed in a position where they were at risk of threats of violence/harassment
• the property requires too many adaptations to be reasonably converted for a prospective tenant.

The agreement will contain a mechanism for dealing with disputes over the suitability of an applicant; or

• enters into a management agreement with Homes4Let, the Council’s charitable letting agency; or
• enters into a leasing agreement with one of the Council’s partner Housing Associations.

In each case the minimum term of the agreement will depend on the amount of grant paid. The Council may claim back the amount of grant paid if the agreement is breached on a sliding scale.