What does LINQ return when the results are empty

It will return an empty enumerable. It won't be null. You can sleep sound :)

var lst = new List<int>() { 1, 2, 3 };
var ans = lst.Where( i => i > 3 );

(ans == null).Dump();  // False
(ans.Count() == 0 ).Dump();  // True

(Dump is from LinqPad)

.ToList returns an empty list. (same as new List<T>() );

You can also check the .Any() method:

if (!YourResult.Any())

Just a note that .Any will still retrieve the records from the database; doing a .FirstOrDefault()/.Where() will be just as much overhead but you would then be able to catch the object(s) returned from the query