If you own an empty property then it makes financial sense to ensure that your investment is adequately protected with unoccupied property insurance.

Certainly, the vulnerability of an empty house may attract the attention of not only the innocent passerby, but thieves, squatters, vandals and others up to no good. Most of us have seen a stereotypical example of an unoccupied property – the homes that practically advertise the fact that no one is living there because the garden is overgrown, cobwebs have grown across the windows, and there are never any lights on at night.

With empty property insurance, you can have the peace of mind that your property is protected against the unexpected. However, under the terms and conditions of your unoccupied property insurance, you will usually have to fulfil some obligations to your insurer in order to keep your vacant property insurance valid.

These may include things like regular visits to the property (say weekly or bi-monthly); draining down the heating systems; and ensuring you have adequate security measures in place etc.

You should also note that your insurer will generally also expect you to make sure that its being empty is not advertised too obviously!

What might you do?

The measures that might be taken to disguise the fact that the property is empty are largely a matter of common sense, but nevertheless still worth rehearsing:

• The unkempt garden is quite a giveaway, of course, so you might want to consider keeping the grass mowed and the garden generally tidy. If you are unable to do so, it might even be worth employing contractors to do the job for you;
• General maintenance of the property has the twin-fold benefit not only of helping to give the impression that someone is at home, but also preventing small repairs developing into much bigger ones. A slipped roof-tile, for example, might stay hanging over the gutter’s edge for years – or it might equally come crashing down through the conservatory roof;
• A trusted neighbour might be asked to look after a key to the property for you (always handy in the event of an emergency) and asked to enter it in from time to time to open / close the curtains and switch on a light or two. In areas of the house where curtains might not normally be drawn, a simple timer might be set up to switch an interior light on and off again;
• The same trusted neighbour (or even a different one!) might also be asked to park their car in the driveway of your unoccupied property from time to time and especially overnight – if the parking arrangements at their own property are already congested, they’re certainly likely to thank you for the opportunity.

In other words, there are a number of ways in which you might avoid advertising the fact that your property is currently lying idle and empty – your unoccupied insurance provider is likely to expect you to take these and other reasonable steps to do so.

Tags: Unoccupied Property Insurance

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 12:27 pm and is filed under Unoccupied Property Insurance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.