Top 8 reasons to use Property Guardians for your empty property

Large double rooms available in this former day hospital in Coleford, Gloucestershire. From just £270pcm including all bills, this property features excellent shared facilities throughout, plentiful off-street parking and a stunning courtyard.

Leaving your property unprotected can lead to theft and vandalism. An empty property is easy to spot, maybe it’s boarded up or has a broken window. These features can alert vandals and thieves and they can then damage the building. It’s common for radiators and scrap metal to be stolen from empty properties.

Security guard costs. Getting security companies to protect your property can be a solution. They offer a large amount of services like: door and window screens designed to deter potential vandals and thieves, 24 hr mobile patrols, CCTV, barriers and fencing, graffiti removal, security signage, solar powered external lighting with motion detection, static security guards and weekly site inspections and reports. However, this all sounds expensive. Having a Property Guardian live in the property not only is far less expensive, but also is highly effective.

The Property Guardianship model is one solution to the housing crisis. Many people are being priced out of the rental market due to rising rent costs. Property Guardians do not pay rent; they pay a licence fee every month that is often considerably more affordable than the market rent price, allowing people to save for their own home in the future.

Home improvements. With your permission and guidelines, our Guardians might like to ‘spruce up’ their space and fix things up around the property. This is great for them, making them feel at home in their space and your property might get a lick of paint out of it.

There’s talk of introducing a vacant property tax to tackle the amount of empty homes in the UK. Vancouver, Canada, has already introduced this tax on vacant properties and the idea is gaining popularity in Ireland. Therefore, Property Guardianship can help keep your property occupied if this tax comes in in the UK.

Protecting the community. When a property is boarded up, it encourages vandalism. But having graffiti and litter around your property also has an effect on how other properties in the area are treated. People are more likely to litter on pavements outside of derelict properties and that can then expand to them littering the whole street and so on. No one wants complaints from the neighbours!

Squatters can be very expensive to remove from your property. With the internet, squatters can be highly organised. There’s even a WikiHow page ‘How to Squat in an Abandoned Property (with pictures). This makes squatters harder for police to detect and costly for property owners. Not only does using Property Guardians deter squatters but it also immediately switches the status of your building from ‘empty’ to ‘lived in’.

Aiding the community. Our Guardians will use local shops and cafes while they live in the neighbourhood. This puts more into the local economy which is aiding the community as well as protecting it.