An excel file providing data on all vacant homes of all tenures, 2004 to 2017, for England and out eight local districts, as reported in MHCLG table 615. The data comes from the council tax base statistical release.
Up until April 2013 dwellings undergoing major structural repairs for up to 12 months and those vacant for less than 6 months were eligible for a council tax exemption (Class A and C respectively). In April 2013 these exemptions were replaced with a new flexible discount which applied to all empty properties. Local authorities are now entitled to apply any level of discount from 0% to 100% to all empty properties. Where local authorities award zero discounts for empty properties there is less incentive for owners to report their property as empty. This could have led to some under reporting of some empty properties.