Reduce the risks of your unoccupied home

With the credit crunch continuing and making properties hard to sell and even rent in some areas, more and more people are finding they have an empty property on their hands.

What most owners of empty homes fail to realise however is that the majority of home insurance policies don't cover properties being empty for more than 30 days and if your property is not covered by a specialist insurance policy, your property can be at serious risk from damage.

There are lots of reasons why a home might become empty, including properties whose owners are hospitalised or spending time in a care home, through to landlords with properties they are struggling to rent. And, with tough current selling conditions, there are those that have had to leave their old homes for a new job in a new area and others that are waiting to sell a property they have inherited.

The risks to long term unoccupied properties are great and include maintenance problems as well as ruffians who might unfortunately delight in causing havoc to your property. The top three maintenance problems include water pipes bursting, which can cause extensive damage to your property, followed by a leaking roof due to missing tiles and damp walls caused by broken guttering.

To make sure that your property doesn't suffer any water pipe damage, it's important to check the property on a weekly basis, which you can do if you find yourself a friendly neighbour or a local letting agent might carry out a visit for you for a small fee. Ideally, leave the central heating on low during the winter months to stop pipes from bursting. If you can, consider fitting thermostats to the radiators so you can keep the heating costs down.

To avoid hooligans damaging your property, or even worse, squatters moving in, ensure your property is as secure as possible. Good locks are a must on windows as well as doors and ideally the property should have a working burglar alarm. If you can afford it, and the property might be unoccupied for some time, invest in CCTV cameras which allow you to monitor what's happening around your property from the comfort of the home you are living in. You can secure these for around £100.

Finally, try to ensure that any hints the property is unoccupied are removed. For example, if possible, clear post daily and make sure there are curtains or blinds rather than boarding up the home. Ways to help make the property looked 'lived in' include offering a driveway for use to neighbours and timers that can randomly switch lights or even a radio on.

Whatever you do with the property long term, make sure that in the interim you have specialist home insurance that protects an unoccupied property. Other insurers may increase the number of days you leave the property empty, but it's only likely to be experienced insurers whose policies will cover you for every eventuality.

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