Blogs

We’re almost into National Empty Homes Week again!  28th November to 2nd December this year. 

We’re moving forward with the empty home owners who contacted Homesmatch to help bring their empty home back into use. 

I thought I’d focus on one of the properties which had been empty for a long time and was looking very sorry for itself.  The owner was at his wits end.  He’d unsuccessfully tried to sell it by auction and really didn’t know what to do next.  The repairs were going to be expensive, and there was nothing else I could do to help him – except to ‘signpost’ the Homesmatch service. 

It’s been a busy July so far, with lots of variety as usual – every day is so different - you just never know what’s coming next!

It’s been an exciting time in my empty homes life lately! 

Life in the Lakes – Homesmatch reaches the parts other empty homes officers can’t always reach!

April 2016

I’ve just come into work – it’s Wednesday morning - and the first email I read was from Charlie Stewart at Homesmatch. A week or so ago, I passed on details for Homesmatch to an owner who is tearing his hair out about his empty property. It’s not for sale yet because there are some other issues which need to be sorted out first. I hadn’t been able to do much for the owner which was very frustrating.

March 2016

How many times have you suggested to owners of empty homes, “why don’t you sell it?” with the reply “I don’t want to sell it till I’ve done it up – but I don’t have the money to do that”! And so the property remains empty…..

Well I’ve discovered a possible new solution (new to me, anyway!) Recently, I met Charlie Stewart from Homesmatch and it sounds like they could be offering a new choice for those owners.

February 2016

We’re already into the second month of a new year and I’ve got my enthusiasm back again, hooray! And my broken elbow (or Spanish Archer, as Matthew Smith described it!) is finally getting better.

Life in the Lakes - Working from home

Well it’s been an interesting couple of months for me since I fell and broke my elbow at the start of August! The first astonishing thing was that I didn’t even realise I’d actually broken anything, as I wasn’t in absolute agony. However that did kick in after the operation… Cue two weeks in a heavy rigid plastercast feeling a bit like the leaning tower of Pisa when I walked. Then lots more pain when the cast came off and the stitches were removed. But I was lucky to be able to work from home from 1^st September.

Life in the Lakes - April 2015

I was thinking about what I could write in this month’s blog, and then I remembered I’d had an unusual one recently which finally came to a successful conclusion, in a very round-a-bout way. Sort of ‘thinking outside the box’ solution…

Life in the Lakes

March 2015

I am currently feeling very happy with the end result of our first empty homes grant, part of our new empty homes grant management scheme. Or as they say in this neck of the woods ‘job’s a good ‘un’!! There’s now a very contented family living in what looks like a new home – mum, dad, 3 kids and dog! Result!

We persevered with the prototype legal agreements needed for this scheme, which took a long time to complete. Now it all feels worthwhile.