What attendance actually means.

Three levels of care. Which one suits depends less on the size of the house than on how long it stands empty.

Keyholder

Entry level · Annual

The minimum sensible arrangement for a house that is genuinely used — one you are at most months, that never stands empty for a whole season.

• Keys held securely coded and secure

• Emergency attendance when an alarm sounds or a neighbour calls

• Contractors, deliveries and meter readers admitted and supervised

• Storm response — attendance within the day when weather warrants it

• A named person who knows the house, reachable directly

Guardian

Our usual arrangement · Monthly

A fortnightly inspection recorded, documented and dated, with a photographic record kept on your behalf. The record is the point: photographs carry their own date, time, and location, which makes them difficult to dispute later.

• Everything included at Keyholder level.Fortnightly inspection — every room, the loft, and the full exterior

• Dated photographic record retained and sent to you after each visit

• Heating, stopcock, gutters, roofline and boundary checked

• Post collected and forwarded; meters read and logged

• Ventilation and damp watched through the winter months

Guardian +

Full stewardship · Monthly

For houses that stand empty for long stretches and are then wanted at short notice, in good order, without anyone having to think about it beforehand.

• Everything included at Guardian level

• Weekly inspection from October through April

• The house opened, aired and heated before you travel

• Beds made, linen laundered, a modest shop left in

• Closed down properly afterwards — water, heating, waste, laundry

• Garden Maintenance Services, windows cleaned and trades engaged and overseen

• A quarterly written report on the condition of the house

As Required

Charged separately

Arranged as and when, for owners at any level of care.

• Contractor attendance and waiting where works are extended

• Out-of-hours and emergency call-out

• Deep cleaning, laundry and window cleaning

• Project management/oversight where building works are under way in your absence

• Gas, electrical and fire safety certification arranged and tracked

• Handover and inventory where a house is being sold or purchased

Because of our practical experience looking after properties, most of what an inspection turns up can be dealt with directly by us — repairs, repointing, roofing, joinery, decorating, and the general business of keeping a coastal house in good order. It also saves you the hassle of finding and coordinating tradespeople from hundreds of miles away.

Any such work is quoted separately and in writing, and you are under no obligation whatever to use us. We would rather tell you the truth about your house and lose the job than the reverse.

We do not publish a price list, which we appreciate is mildly irritating. The reason is that the work is genuinely not comparable between houses: a flat above the harbour with a single stopcock and no garden is a different undertaking from a four-bedroom house on a clifftop with an oil tank, a well and half an acre of hedge.