Learn
Guides to leaving a property empty.
Written to be useful whether or not you ever book anything. Most of this applies anywhere in Canada.
Planning a vacancy
Before you leave, and what to decide.
Should You Shut the Water Off When You Travel?
When shutting off the water is the right call, when it is not enough on its own, and the situations where it is the wrong move.
What Temperature Should You Leave a Vacant House At?
Why the commonly recommended figure is around 15 °C, why lower is a false economy, and why one thermostat reading is not the whole story.
How Often Should a Vacant Home Be Checked?
How to think about visit frequency — what drives it, what changes it, and why the honest answer starts with your policy.
Can I Leave My House Empty for Three Months?
Yes, with preparation — but three months is the point at which several things change at once, including how your insurance responds.
Keeping a Vacant Home Secure
What actually deters entry to an empty property, what does not, and the insurance trap most owners never check.
Sensors, Smart Thermostats and What They Actually Do
Connected devices genuinely shorten detection time on a vacant property. They also cannot do the four things that matter most, and it is worth knowing which is which.
Insurance
How policies treat vacancy, and what to ask.
Vacant and Unoccupied Home Insurance in Alberta
How Canadian policies treat vacancy and extended absence, what conditions commonly apply, and the questions to put to your broker.
The Questions to Ask Your Insurer Before You Leave
A short, printable list of the specific questions that determine what your policy requires during an extended absence.
Vacant vs Unoccupied: What the Difference Actually Means
Two words insurers use differently, and why which one applies to your property changes what is covered.
Seasonal
Alberta winters, and the calendar that follows.
Leaving a Home Vacant Through an Alberta Winter
The specific preparation an Alberta winter demands, from freeze risk and furnace venting to chinook cycling and snow bylaw obligations.
The Snowbird Departure Checklist
A complete, printable checklist for Calgary owners leaving for the winter — insurance, water, heat, exterior, security and the arrangements to make before you fly.
Calgary Hail Season and Vacant Property
Calgary sits in one of the most hail-prone regions in North America. Storm cells are narrow, damage is uneven street to street, and an empty house has nobody to notice.
By situation
Estates, listings, rentals, inventory and portfolios.
Looking After a Home That Is Empty and For Sale
What an empty listing needs, why it shows worse over time, and how to keep it presenting the way the photographs promised.
The Vacant Listing Checklist
A working checklist for keeping an empty listing presentable, secure and monitored while it is on the market.
Caring for a Property During Probate
What an executor needs to do about the house — insurance, security, maintenance and documentation — while an estate is settled.
The Executor's Property Checklist
A sequenced checklist for executors dealing with a house — immediately, monthly, and before the property is sold or transferred.
Looking After a Rental Between Tenants
The physical property work during a turnover, and the clear line between property care and licensed property management.
Leaving a Condo Empty: What Is Different
A vacant unit needs a shorter list than a house, with one risk that is considerably larger.
Completed Inventory Through Its First Winter
Why a brand-new unsold home has a distinctive risk profile, and what monitoring it actually requires.
Monitoring Investment Property You Rarely See
Remote ownership produces the longest discovery times in vacant property. What to do about that.
Reference
What actually happens to an empty house.
What Actually Happens to a House That Sits Empty
A timeline of what changes in an unattended property — weeks, months and years — and which of it is preventable.
Why Empty Houses Smell, and How to Stop It
The stale smell in a long-empty house is usually one specific, easily prevented thing.
Sewer Scopes: What They Find and When to Do One
The most expensive thing under an older Calgary house is the one nobody has ever looked at. What a camera inspection shows and when it is worth doing.
How to Choose Someone to Check on Your House
What to ask any home-watch company before you hand over a key — including this one — and which reassuring phrases mean nothing without a document behind them.
Need someone at the house?
Tell us what the property needs. Direct services throughout Greater Calgary.