Those people fortunate enough to own a holiday home will most certainly have a property that provides a regular income stream and hopefully an increasing capital value. The rent payable by a holidaymaker is much more than that paid by a tenant for a let property and as an added bonus the holidaymakers need to pay their holiday rent in advance. You also have the freedom to use the property yourself for family holidays and weekend trips plus the option let a few friends and family enjoy it.

However, unlike a standard let property, a holiday let property is often empty for short and long periods of time depending on the season and possibly the weather. As much as you might try it is inevitable that there will be some empty periods. During these void periods it maybe difficult to determine whether there are any problems with the property unless it is regularly visited and how would anyone contact you to let you know? If you live a good distance away it may not be practical for you to make regular visits.

A good number of holiday home owners do not live near their property, it is used as a weekend and holiday getaway in another part of the country. It would therefore be prudent to use the services of a friend or family member who could visit the property to see that all is well. Alternatively, a holiday letting company would undertake these visits for a charge.

A holiday let property is no different to a property that you or I would live in. It still needs to be maintained and repaired on a regular basis. So what would you do if your holiday home was flooded or burgled whilst you were not there? Hopefully one of the neighbours or the emergency services would be called to see if they could help. But how do they contact the owner of the property?

Unless you leave your contact details with a neighbour then this could be a problem waiting to happen.

There are a few tips that could help with this problem:

Leave your contact details with a neighbour in case of emergencies
Leave a note inside the property, in a prominent place, with your contact details
Leave details of the letting agent with a neighbour or inside the property

Now these options rely on the emergency services having access to the property so they can then find your contact details. Many problems can occur externally and so the Police would not have a reason to enter the home.

What you don't want to do is alert people to the fact that the property is empty. If possible arrange for the post to be collected and removed from the doormat and ask people to pop in regularly to check all is well. A few lights on timers would also give the impression that the property is being used.

Your holiday home is a precious asset so do all you can to make sure it stays safe.