Looking after your home when you're away is not an easy feat!
Looking after your home when you're not there is, well, it's impossible. It is important to always have a set of eyes and ears on the ground to ensure your home is secure, safe, and cared for when you're away. It nearly always comes as a surprise to our clients that they are actually voiding their home and contents insurance if they are away for more than 3 weeks without declaring it - crazy we know. Equally, houses and apartments need and want to be lived in, so when they are empty a whole host of issues can arise such as:
Frozen pipes
Limescale build-up
Broken HVAC systems
Drops in boiler pressure
Damp and mildew issues
Blocked toilets and cisterns
Leaking and clogged A/C units
“So often we see that clients think that they can just lock-up and leave for a few months, then they experience frustrations every time they come back into town having to deal with overdue maintenance and the issues caused. I have lost count of the number of times clients told us they would come home to have no heating or hot-water before using our service. Not so fun after a long flight!”
These issues apply to both old period properties and modern new build flats, no home is safe from the perils of being vacant sadly. There are some things you can do to improve matters, such as keeping your heating and water systems on a timer for a few hours a day and installing leak detection devices, but this can be somewhat of a double edged blade as this will of course increase your bills whilst you are away, and also can pose other even more serious risks such as house fires and bad leaks.
So what is vacant care you might ask? Well, vacant care is where a trusted person (or agency) attends to your property whilst you are away to check everything is as it should be. These checks tend to include turning on heating, cooling, and hot-water systems, flushing all toilets and running taps to avoid limescale build-up and pressure issues, testing any security systems and ensuring all doors and windows/access points are secured, checking for signs of any leaks, and much more. Depending on the property and your agreement, these checks might occur daily, monthly, or even quarterly. We personally recommend a weekly check, as anything less than this and serious issues can go unattended for too long, but more than this and you may as well look into professional live-in house sitting options - which can be very affordable and offer even greater peace of mind. The downside of house sitting is that you can't just simply come home without notice, and it is very hard to find someone that you 100% trust with your home and it's contents on a full-time live in basis. Not to mention it also causes inevitable wear and tear to your home, as you are essentially having a full-time tenant whilst you're away.
For these reasons many people opt for an agency to take care of their home with weekly checks when they are not in town for any longer than a month. Not only does it offer complete peace of mind, it reduces costs, and protects your home and it's contents - it can even reduce your insurance premiums! The list of reasons why such a service holds value truly goes on and on, and we speak from experience when we say that it is no fun arriving home to have to deal with even just one of these problems. But let's stop there for now and talk about solutions! At CPL our vacant care service takes care of all of this and more. Our dedicated team will carry out weekly checks perfectly tailored to your property's unique needs to ensure that your home is always ready and waiting for your arrival, and safe and sound when you're away.
For full details on this service head over to our Vacant Care Services page on the website or contact our team today for a free no-obligation survey and proposal for this service to see how we could help to make your home life a little bit easier - home@cheshamproperty.com