Guides

Buying an empty or derelict house in the Outer Hebrides

The islands have more long-term empty houses, in proportion, than almost anywhere in Scotland, and most of them are not advertised for sale at all.

In brief

• The Western Isles had 688 long-term empty homes in 2024, 4.51% of all homes in the council area against 1.80% for Scotland, and 91% of them had been empty over a year.
• The council employs an empty homes officer, and what is on offer is free advice rather than money.
• An empty house can be charged double council tax, and a renovating buyer has a six-month exclusion from it.
• Renovation work on a home empty for two years carries VAT at 5%, and the builder has to apply it on the invoice.

How many, and where

National Records of Scotland count a home as long-term empty when it has been unoccupied for six months or more and is still liable for council tax. On that count the Western Isles had 688 empty homes in 2024, 4.51% of all homes in the council area against 1.80% for Scotland, and 91% of them had been empty for longer than a year. The Scottish Empty Homes Partnership publishes the same count by area, and it puts most of them outside Stornoway: Barra and South Uist carried the largest share.

Two things follow. An empty house is most likely to be found in a rural township rather than in town. And most are not on the market: 688 of them against the few hundred advertised across all the agents at any one time, which is what the full list holds. The council says only that they have stayed empty for different reasons, and a house that is not advertised is not for sale. The route to one that is available runs through the council's Match Maker Scheme, where an owner who has decided to sell advertises a house that is proving difficult to sell.

The empty homes officer

Comhairle nan Eilean Siar employs an empty homes officer inside its housing service, and the work is with owners rather than with buyers. What the council offers an owner is free advice: house condition surveys, empty property discounts, VAT exemptions for renovating an empty property, local company discounts, and advice on becoming a landlord or on selling. The part of it a buyer can use is the Match Maker Scheme, which the council describes as a free service letting a homeowner advertise a property that is difficult to sell and reach another client base. The contact details are on the council's own page.

What derelict means for the paperwork

An empty house that is still a house is sold like any other in Scotland: the seller has to provide a Home Report and hand it over within nine days of being asked, and the exemptions are narrow ones such as a new build or an unoccupied conversion. Home Reports, offers and missives covers what is in the report.

A ruin advertised as a plot rather than a house is a different transaction, and which of the two is being sold is a question for the selling agent before anything else. Where the house sits on a croft the picture changes again: one that has not been decrofted is still part of the croft, and buying a croft or a house on a croft sets out the three cases.

Council tax on an empty house

The council's position is short: a property that stops being a second home is classed as an empty property and still charged double council tax under the empty homes policy. One marketed for sale or for long-term let is spared that for up to six months, and so is a house bought within the last six months, empty over a year and demonstrably under repair.

What the council does not publish is the point at which the doubled charge starts, so ask the council tax team for the current rule before you buy rather than after. Once the house is your main residence the ordinary charge applies, and what a house costs to run carries the band table.

VAT at 5% on the renovation

This is the relief buyers most often miss. HMRC's VAT Notice 708 sets a reduced rate of 5% for the renovation or alteration of empty residential premises, and section 8 states the condition: the dwelling must not have been lived in during the two years before the work starts. The builder charges the reduced rate on qualifying work and on the materials supplied with it, and there is nothing to reclaim afterwards, so it has to be right on the invoice.

Proving the house was empty is the buyer's job, and the notice names the evidence HMRC accepts: council tax records, the electoral roll, and empty property officers in local authorities. The rate is on the work rather than the purchase and does not cover everything, professional fees included, so have the contractor confirm in writing which lines of the quote carry it.

Grants once you live there

The Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan is the main public money for making an old island house warm, with an island uplift that takes it to a combined maximum of £18,000, and Warmer Homes Scotland is the other. The condition that bites here is that the applicant has to own the home they live in as their only or main residence: the grant is for the house you live in rather than the one you are about to, so the sequence matters. If the house is a croft house, grants when you buy, build or fix a croft house is a larger and separate pot.

Seeing the house for what it is

A house that has stood empty for years will usually have damp, a roof to look at and services disconnected, so the officer's free house condition survey is the right place to start. Three checks before any offer:

• Title and boundaries. An old house may still be on the Sasine register rather than the Land Register, and the boundaries on the ground may not match the deeds. Your solicitor orders the searches, and who sells property here covers the island firms.
• Services. Ask whether the water supply is public or private, whether there is a septic tank or a sewer connection, and whether the electricity supply is live. Each is a cost line and sometimes a planning question.
• Consents. Extending, changing the use of or substantially reconstructing an old house needs planning permission and a building warrant; building on a plot covers both.

Empty houses that reach the market tend to sit: the sold and withdrawn list shows what each was asking the day its advert came down, and the reduced list every price cut.

Sources

• Scottish Empty Homes Partnership, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar — the 2024 count of 688, 4.51% against 1.80%, 91% over a year, and the area table. Checked 15 September 2026.
• Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, Empty Homes Project — the officer, the free advice and the Match Maker Scheme. Checked 15 September 2026.
• Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, second homes: frequently asked questions — the empty property double charge and the six-month marketing exemption. Checked 15 September 2026.
• HMRC, VAT Notice 708: buildings and construction — section 8, the 5% rate, the two-year condition and the proof HMRC accepts. Checked 15 September 2026.
• mygov.scot, the Home Report — the nine-day rule and the exemptions. Checked 15 September 2026.
• Home Energy Scotland, grant and loan — the island uplift, the £18,000 maximum and the owner-occupier condition. Checked 15 September 2026.
• Home Energy Scotland, Warmer Homes Scotland — the scheme and who it is for. Checked 15 September 2026.
• The Council Tax (Variation for Unoccupied Dwellings) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2023 — the six-month exclusion for a renovating buyer. Checked 15 September 2026.

Last checked 15 September 2026. Every source named above was read on that date, and rules, rates and timetables all move, so check the current position before you rely on a figure here. Corrections to hello@outerhebridesproperty.co.uk.