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Rent is being lost due to empty council properties being knocked back multiple times by potential tenants.

In July this year, the number of void properties which became available to let was 25.

However, officials said a number of these required “significant works” and many properties were offered “multiple times”.

One property was offered eight times, another four were offered five times and three were offered three times.

As a result of this and the works required, rent loss due to them being empty was 1.10 per cent of total rental income.

Newly-published figures showed Stirling Council’s performance for void rent loss in 2016/17 overall (0.71 per cent) was the ninth best local authority of the 26 which manage their own stock. The average for local authorities was said to be 1.02 per cent.

Officials said: “At the moment applicants have an unlimited number of offers and can put down areas which are fairly aspirational but in some cases they are even putting specific houses in an application. They will continue to refuse properties until they get the one they are looking for.

“As part of our review of the housing allocations policy, we will be looking at some restrictions.

“Up to three or four years ago we had restrictions whereby people were offered a specific number of properties before being suspended for a year, so they would only put down the area they would accept.”

Their report said the time taken to re-let properties had increased, partly due to the number of properties becoming vacant, including properties vacated by tenants moving to new build properties via the transfer list.

The council’s empty homes officer, however, had successfully helped to bring 57 private properties in the Stirling Council area back into use in 2016/17 and recovered almost £36,000 worth of debt owed to the council as a result of such intervention.

Since 2013-14, 186 private properties have been brought back into use and more than £250,000 in council tax payments and debt recovered.

While the number of applicants on the housing waiting list has remained virtually unchanged for 2016-17 compared with the previous years, the numbers on the transfer and homeless lists have increased.