More than £1.7bn of unclaimed property is lying vacant throughout England and Wales according to property developer, Stripe Homes. Unfortunately, such abandoned buildings are attractive to intruders and vandals who can cause considerable damage both to the property itself, as well as the local community. If you’re the owner of a residential or commercial building which is currently vacant, it’s important to put effective security in place for the following reasons.
Maintain Your Property’s Financial Value
Vacant property security can help to ensure that your property’s financial value doesn’t decrease. If an unprotected building is targeted by squatters or arsonists who damage either the interior or exterior, then you could lose thousands off the resell price. Even worse, by letting your property fall into disrepair at the hands of criminals, it could cost you a significant fee to bring the building back up to a liveable or sellable condition.
Lower Your Insurance Risk
Insurance companies will look favourably on a policyholder who has a well-considered vacant property security in place. As insurance is all about risk assessment, your provider will know that there will be much less chance of them having to pay out on a property which is being properly protected. The benefit to you is that you can expect to pay lower insurance premiums each month.
Safeguard The Local Community
As a vacant property owner, you have a responsibility to your local community to ensure that your asset is protected. Any unoccupied building has the potential to draw the attention of criminals who might use it as a:
- Base for their criminal activities
- Location for squatting
- Venue for raves
- Space to vandalise
Any of the above can cause significant disruption to anyone else living or working in the vicinity. But worse, if intruders have crossed the boundary into your vacant property, then there is always the potential for danger too. For example, squatters may light internal or external fires to keep warm if the mains power isn’t connected.
How to Secure a Vacant Property
Sicuro offers a wide range of advanced security solutions which are ideal for your vacant property. We recognise that each unoccupied building, whether domestic or commercial, is entirely unique. That’s why our work will always begin with a FREE site security assessment so we can establish the individual threats or vulnerabilities to your property.
If you don’t currently have mains power connected to your building, then we will usually advise our wireless video verification alarm which runs off Lithium batteries with a capacity of up to 4 years, based on average conditions. We will set up and activate cameras to cover the entire scope of your site to offer full protection. When a security event triggers one of the cameras, a 10 second video clip will be generated and sent to our NSI Gold monitoring station to be reviewed by our professional security team. In the event of an authentic breach at your vacant property, we will dispatch our trained SIA responders to deal with the intruder.
Alongside our wireless surveillance systems, you might also be interested in our manned patrol services and clear barriers and signage to act as a visual deterrent to any potential trespassers. All our services are available either as a standalone or a combination package.
Bespoke Security Solutions with Sicuro
Are you the owner or manager of any vacant residential or commercial property? If you have any concerns about security, then please don’t hesitate to book your FREE site security assessment today by calling 0800 999 1888 or email info@sicuro.co.uk.
