Response 4093135

Response to request for information

Reference

4093135

Response date

25 August 2026

Request

Please provide a list of all residential properties within your authority's area that are currently recorded as long-term empty for council tax purposes (i.e. unoccupied and substantially unfurnished for six months or more, including any properties subject to the empty homes council tax premium).

For each property, please provide:

1. The full property address including postcode
2. The date the property became empty, or alternatively the duration band (e.g. 6–12 months, 1–2 years, 2–5 years, 5+ years)
3. Whether the empty homes premium is currently applied

To be clear, I am NOT requesting the names of owners, council tax account holders, or any other personal data — addresses and vacancy duration only. I am aware that some authorities have concerns about disclosing full addresses; if you consider a full-address release exempt, I would ask that you consider the following before refusing:

The Information Commissioner's Office has in multiple decision notices found that empty property addresses, absent any personal data, can be disclosed under FOIA.

As a partial alternative, I would accept the data aggregated to street level or postcode sector level (e.g. number of long-term empty properties per street), which removes any conceivable identification risk.

Response

I am unable to release the information requested as the information is exempt from disclosure by virtue of section 31 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Section 31(1)(a) states that the information is exempt if its disclosure would be likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime. The Council has considered the arguments for and against disclosure and has applied the Public interest Test. The Council's decision is that it would not be in the public interest to disclose information about empty properties as it would be likely to result in criminal activities such as squatting, theft and vandalism.

In refusing your request the Council relies on the Information Tribunal's decision (Case No.EA/2011/0007) dated 22 January 2013 where it was found that the London Borough of Camden was entitled to refuse a request for information about empty properties because the section 31(1)(a) exemption "was engaged and the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighed the public interest in disclosing it

Section 31(1)(a) states that the information is exempt if its disclosure would be likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime. The Council has considered the arguments for and against disclosure and has applied the Public interest Test.

The Council's decision is that it would not be in the public interest to disclose information about empty properties, as it would be likely to result in criminal activities such as squatting, theft and vandalism.

Your right to seek a review

You can ask us to review our response. If you want us to carry out a review, please let us know within 40 working days. Your written request for a review should be addressed to the Data Protection Officer and sent to email address customerservices@rushcliffe.gov.uk or by post to:

Data Protection Officer, Rushcliffe Borough Council, Rushcliffe Arena, Rugby Road, Nottingham NG2 2YG.

If you are still dissatisfied after our internal review, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You should make complaints to the ICO within six weeks of receiving the outcome of an internal review. The easiest way to lodge a complaint is through their website: www.ico.org.uk/foicomplaints or by post to The ICO, FOI/EIR Complaints Resolution, Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF.

Review

Thank you for the council's response of 1 September. I'd like to request an internal review, but on a deliberately narrow point, as I accept the council's position on property-level disclosure.

I note the council relies on section 31(1)(a) and the Tribunal's decision in EA/2011/0007 (Camden) in declining to release the addresses of long-term empty properties. I do not intend to contest that as regards individual addresses.

However, my original request expressly offered to accept the information aggregated to street or postcode sector level, that is, a count of long-term empty properties per street or sector, with no addresses. The response does not address this alternative. Aggregated counts do not identify any individual property and therefore cannot prejudice the prevention or detection of crime in the way contemplated by section 31(1)(a) or by the Camden decision, which concerned identifiable addresses. I would respectfully suggest that the council is obliged to consider whether the request can be met in part, and that the aggregated form was, and remains, a straightforward way of doing so.

I would therefore ask the council to review its decision and provide, in place of the original request:

1. The number of residential properties currently classed as long-term empty for council tax purposes (six months or more), broken down by postcode sector (e.g. NG2 5, NG2 6, NG2 7) or, if preferred, by ward; and
2. Of those, the number currently subject to the empty homes premium, on the same breakdown.

If the council considers even sector-level counts too granular, I would accept ward-level figures.

Response

I note your review request does not relate to the validity of the Council's decision that identification of empty properties could result in criminal activities such as squatting, theft and vandalism. It relates to the original response not considering whether the information could be released in an aggregated form which you amended in your internal review request from street level to postcode sector or ward level. 

On review I uphold the original decision to withhold property-level information but agree that the alternative disclosure parameter should have been considered in the original response.

I can confirm that the Council Tax information is not held at ward-level in recorded form and there is no requirement that a new data set is created, as a result of your request.  

We do hold the information which could be produced by postcode sector.  I have therefore considered whether the postcode sector is an area which is sufficiently geographically limited to maintain the risk that empty homes could be identified when taken together with other information such as observation of the condition of the property.  I understand that postcode sectors cover approximately 2500 – 3000 deliverable addresses which can amount to a few streets in an urban postcode or a whole village in rural areas.  Postcode sectors can straddle areas in more than one local authority area making these potentially smaller areas.  There is also variation in the proportion of residential to commercial addresses in each sector.

I consider that even at sector level there is a risk that public disclosure of the presence of vulnerable properties would result in them being identified when taken together with other information.  A postcode sector is not sufficiently wide to prevent this identification by those seeking to achieve this given the number of empty properties in the Borough and the observable physical indicators that may distinguish an unoccupied property from an occupied property.    

Where there is a risk of properties being identified the exemption under section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom Of Information Act applies where disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention or detection of crime. The Council accepts that there is a public interest in empty homes being brought back into productive use and recognises the wider benefits of reducing long term vacancy. However, disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act is disclosure to the world at large, not solely to the requester or for the requester’s stated purpose. 

In this case, the Council considers that releasing information which identifies long-term empty residential properties would be likely to increase the risk of those properties being targeted for criminal activity, including burglary, theft of fixtures or materials, criminal damage, vandalism, arson, unlawful occupation, and associated antisocial behaviour. The risk is not removed by withholding owner or occupier details. The sensitivity lies in identifying which properties are empty. 

The Council does not consider that disclosure by postcode sector would sufficiently reduce the risk.  In many sectors, an empty property may be readily apparent from its condition, appearance, lack of occupation, overgrown garden, boarded windows, accumulated post, or other visible indicators. Providing sector-level information would therefore still assist a person seeking to identify vulnerable empty properties and would increase the risk of those properties being targeted. I have reconsidered the public interest test. There is a public interest in transparency, in understanding the scale and distribution of empty homes, and in supporting lawful action to return such properties to use. However, the Council considers that these interests are outweighed by the stronger public interest in preventing crime, protecting property, avoiding harm to owners and neighbouring residents, and not publishing information that would make vulnerable premises easier to locate. 

Your explanation of the intended use of the information has been noted. However, the Council must assess the consequences of disclosure generally. Once disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, the information could be copied, republished, used by others, or combined with other publicly observable information. The Council cannot control or restrict onward use by limiting disclosure to a particular requester or purpose. 

The Council’s internal review outcome is that the original refusal is upheld. The Council is not able to provide the requested postcode sector information, because the information would still be likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime.

Section 16 Advice and Assistance

While the Council has determined that postcode sector level information would not sufficiently mitigate the risk of vulnerable properties being identified, it would be willing to release this information by postcode district. I consider that disclosure of information in relation to this larger geographical area would strike the right balance between providing the information while sufficiently mitigating the risk of individual properties becoming identifiable.  Please let us know if you would like this to be done.