13
Mar
2018
By Calvin at 10:54 GMT, 6 years ago
I’ve just been reading an article on Liverpool Victoria (LV) Insurance’s website about empty homes and their risks. During 2015 two hundred thousand homes stood empty for more than 6 months and I have no doubt that that figure will be about the same for 2018.
There are lots of reasons why a home is left unoccupied:
- It’s an out of season rental holiday home
- It’s a second home
- It’s standing empty waiting for a sale to go through
- The owner is working abroad
- The owner has moved into a care home or is in hospital
- The owner is on an extended holiday
LV (who link to my website from time to time) make the point that lots of insurers won’t cover the home if left unoccupied for more than 30 days in a row and several will require you to leave the heating on if the house is left empty for several days in the winter.
I’d never thought about this and I wonder if you have?
Empty homes are also more at risk of being burgled and to make matters worse the discovery of an intrusion maybe delayed simply because nobody will be returning home to find what’s happened.
It seems sensible then to make your home look occupied when it isn’t and depending on the circumstances that have led to the home being left empty it may not be the owner of the property who will be able to do what is required. For example, it might be a relative of yours who is spending time in hospital and is therefore not in a position to help themselves.
My holiday security checklist will provide some useful advice as will many of the other pages on this website. You might also want to check your own home insurance conditions; I know I will.
Holiday security checklist for empty homes https://thecrimepreventionwebsite.com/home-security-assessment/469/holiday-checklist-for-your-security/
