Void property inspection: start before the keys come back

This post in 30 seconds.

• The cost: across the 45 landlords in Housemark's Voids Club, the average relet took 74 days, against under 30 days five years earlier. Scottish social landlords lost £39.8m in rent to empty homes in 2024/25.
• The fix: move the first look into the notice period. A guided room-by-room capture by the outgoing tenant or the housing officer lets the voids team scope works, order materials and flag recharges from the desk.
• The limit: gas, electrical and alarm checks still need a qualified person in the property. A capture briefs them and files the proof. It signs nothing off.
• Who this is for: voids, lettings and asset managers at housing associations and council housing teams in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

Notice comes in on a Monday. The tenant is gone in four weeks, and nobody from the voids team sees inside the property until the keys are back on the desk.

Then a surveyor drives out just to scope it. The kitchen contractor turns up a week later without the worktop, because the job sheet said "kitchen: repair". Three months on, the former tenant disputes a recharge for a door they say was already broken, and nobody has a dated photo either way.

This guide walks through the whole void inspection process with one aim: get the information earlier. The pre-termination visit, the post-void inspection against your lettable standard, the safety checks every void needs, the evidence behind a recharge, and the handover to the next household.

Voids managers at housing associations and councils know the empty home where the first real look happens on the day the keys come back, so the scope, the materials order and the recharge case all start from zero. We build Venta Capture, VentaVid's guided capture platform, so the person who is already in the home can show you every room during the notice period. See how a pre-void capture works, then judge it against your own voids process.

In this post:

• Where the void days go
• The pre-termination visit: use the notice period
• The post-void inspection and your lettable standard
• Safety checks every void needs
• Rechargeable repairs: evidence that holds up
• Measure turnaround by stage

Where the void days go

A void isn't one delay. It's a chain of hand-offs, and most of the lost days sit in the gaps between them. The published data says that chain has been getting longer on both sides of the Irish Sea.

• England. Housemark's voids research, reported in February 2025, estimates around 300,000 social homes became void in 2023/24, costing the sector up to £1.6bn in repairs, lettings and lost rent. Over £1.1bn of that went on void repairs alone. Among the 45 providers in its Voids Club, the average relet took 74 days, close to 50 days for standard voids without major works, and below 30 days five years earlier.
• Scotland. The Scottish Housing Regulator's National Report on the Charter for 2024-2025 puts the average time to re-let at 61 days. Councils rose to 78 days (from 73), housing associations to 40 (from 39). Landlords lost £39.8m in rent from empty homes, 1.3% of all rent due.
• Ireland. The National Oversight and Audit Commission's Performance Indicator Report 2024 found local authority re-letting averaged 35.56 weeks in 2024, the highest since 2014, up from 33.72 weeks the year before. The average re-letting cost was €31,136 per home, across 3,375 homes re-let.

The Scottish regulator's report also points at the causes landlords give: delays from utility companies, and homes handed back in poor condition. The second one is exactly what a voids team could know weeks earlier.

Break a void into stages and it's easier to see where information, not labour, is the bottleneck:

1. Notice to keys. The tenant is still in. For many voids teams this is dead time.
2. Keys to scope. A surveyor or voids officer visits to find out what the job is.
3. Scope to start. Works orders, materials, an asbestos survey where the age of the home calls for one, contractor slots.
4. Works and safety checks. Trades and engineers in the property.
5. Sign-off to let. Final inspection, viewings, sign-up, handover.

Only stage 4 needs people with tools in the building. Stages 1 to 3 are waiting for information, and they produce the three failures every voids manager recognises:

• The scoping trip. A surveyor visit whose only output is a list of what needs doing.
• The wasted attendance. A contractor who arrives without the right materials, or the wrong trade entirely, because the scope was a line of text.
• The recharge nobody can prove. A dispute months later with no dated record of the condition at notice.

The pre-termination visit: use the notice period

The notice period is the only time the home is still occupied, still accessible and still the outgoing tenant's responsibility, which makes it the cheapest moment to find out what the void will need. Most landlords already know this.

Cambridge City Council's Void Management Policy is typical: tenants give 28 days' notice, and once written notice arrives "a pre-termination visit will be undertaken". That visit determines the condition of the property and highlights the repairs the tenant is responsible for fixing before they leave.

I read several published voids and recharge policies from councils and housing associations for this piece. The better ones spell out what the photos should cover, down to the gas and electric meter readings. But each of them assumes an officer gets into the home, on a day the tenant is in, and writing up what they saw.

A guided capture keeps the same record and hands the camera to someone who is already there. At notice, the outgoing tenant receives a secure, personal capture link by text, WhatsApp or email (or scans a QR code in the notice acknowledgement). They record when it suits them, in the evening or at the weekend, and your team reviews when it's ready. That's asynchronous capture: no appointment to align, no officer on the other end of a video call.

Where the tenant won't or can't do it, the housing officer starts the same capture on their own phone during the visit. Either way the record has the same structure.

A pre-void capture flow, step by step

This is a sensible first version. Rename the rooms and steps to match your own lettable standard.

1. Confirm the home. The link already carries your tenancy reference, so the tenant only checks the address.
2. The outside and the front door. Door, frame, locks, entrance, garden, bins, sheds and outbuildings.
3. Each room from the doorway. One wide shot per room before any close-ups. It's the context shot nobody sends unprompted.
4. Walls, ceilings, floors and windows. Per room, with an example photo showing the angle you want.
5. Kitchen close-ups. Worktops, unit doors, sink, cooker space, extractor, tiling behind the hob.
6. Bathroom close-ups. Bath or shower, seals, WC, basin, flooring, extractor fan.
7. Heating and hot water. The boiler and its data plate, the cylinder if there is one, the radiators. This helps your engineer arrive prepared. It is not a gas safety check.
8. Meters and consumer unit. Gas, electric and water meters with readings visible, and the consumer unit with the cover closed.
9. Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. Where each one is. Again, a record of location, not a test.
10. "Have you made any changes to the home?" A yes/no question. A "yes" opens a step to show each alteration, which is where unauthorised improvements surface before they become a void surprise.
11. "Will you leave anything behind?" Furniture, carpets, white goods, items in the loft or shed. Clearance is a common recharge and a common delay.
12. A spoken walk-through. A short video: "walk from the front door through each room and tell us about anything broken, or anything you've changed." The speech is transcribed into searchable text on the case.
13. Forwarding address and contact, then submit. Asked last, after the useful part is done, with a declaration tick box and a reference number on the thank-you page.

Each step shows an example photo and one plain instruction, in the tenant's language (15 are available), with no app and no account. If the tenant opens it on a laptop, they get a QR code to continue on their phone. The mechanics are on the request video by link page, and the idea behind the steps is guided capture.

What the voids team does with it, from the desk

• Classify the void. Standard void or major works, days before the keys are back.
• Order early. Kitchen doors, a worktop, a bath panel, sized from the photos, so the contractor's first attendance is a working one.
• Book the specialists. An asbestos survey or a damp surveyor where the capture shows the need, rather than finding out at the post-void visit.
• Send the tenant their list. Repairs they're responsible for, with their own photos attached, while they still have time to fix them and avoid a recharge.
• Ask for what's missing. If the bathroom ceiling step is blurry, a retake request goes out in one click, names that step, and asks the tenant why they're recording again.

Want to see a pre-void flow from the tenant's phone and from the voids inbox? Take a look at Venta Capture.

The post-void inspection and your lettable standard

The post-void inspection still happens in person. What changes is that the inspector arrives with the notice record open, checking and adding to it, instead of starting a blank sheet. Cambridge's policy is a good picture of what that visit carries. "As soon as possible after the tenant leaves", the inspection should:

• Make it safe. Confirm the home is empty and remove anything that's a risk to contractors or viewers.
• Secure it. Change the front and back door locks.
• Identify recharges. Outstanding disrepair that may be the previous tenant's responsibility.
• Arrange checks. Appliances and installations tested, and an asbestos survey where needed.
• Scope to the standard. Health and safety works, repairs needed to reach the relet standard, and repairs that can wait for the day-to-day team after the new tenant moves in.

Most of that list is judgement and keys, which is why this visit stays physical. Remote-first, not remote-only.

Write the lettable standard as capture steps

Cambridge describes its relet standard as safe and secure, fit to live in, and compliant with legal requirements, and adds a line every voids manager should borrow: "It is not a modernisation or improvement standard."

A standard that isn't a wish list is a finite list, and a finite list converts cleanly into steps. Take each line of your lettable standard and make it one capture step with an example photo: "all internal doors open, close and latch", "no holes in plaster larger than your example", "kitchen units complete with doors and handles". The same steps then serve three times:

• At notice, the outgoing tenant or officer records against them.
• After the contractor finishes, the contractor records against them.
• At handover, the voids officer confirms against them.

In Venta Capture, the post-void case can be linked to the pre-termination case, so notice condition and void condition sit in one file and a reviewer compares them side by side. A reviewer does the comparing, with both records in front of them.

A void is also the one moment the whole home is empty and visible. What you record here is useful beyond the relet: feed it into your stock condition survey data rather than leaving it in a voids folder, and treat the notice and void records together as a practical schedule of condition for that home.

Safety checks every void needs

Gas, electrical, alarm and water safety checks are done by competent people in the property, and a photo from anyone's phone is not a substitute for any of them. What a capture adds is timing and proof: the engineer arrives briefed, and the evidence that each check happened lands in the same case as everything else.

Gas

The HSE's guidance for landlords is direct: "Before you re-let a property after tenants have vacated it, you need to ensure that all appliances and flues are safe and have an up-to-date gas safety check record." The copy goes to new tenants before they move in, and you keep the record for 2 years.

Voids get one extra line. If an appliance could have been tampered with, or the home could have been vandalised while empty, HSE recommends another check by a Gas Safe registered engineer before new tenants get access. A long void is exactly that situation.

Electrical

In England, the government's response on electrical safety in the social rented sector extends the private-sector rules to social landlords. Installations must be inspected and tested at least every five years, a copy of the EICR goes to any new tenant before they occupy the home, and electrical equipment provided with the tenancy needs in-service testing too. The response set the start for new tenancies in November 2025 and existing tenancies in May 2026.

In Wales, the fitness for human habitation guidance also sets a five-year test, and the current EICR must reach the contract-holder within 14 days of the occupation date.

Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms

Since 1 October 2022, the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm regulations apply to registered providers of social housing in England. At least one smoke alarm on every storey used as living accommodation, a carbon monoxide alarm in any living room with a fixed combustion appliance (gas cookers excluded), and each alarm "in proper working order on the day the tenancy begins" for a new tenancy.

Wales asks for more: smoke alarms on every storey connected to the electrical supply and interlinked, and a carbon monoxide alarm in any room with a gas, oil or solid fuel appliance.

Water hygiene

Empty homes grow stagnant water. The HSE's legionella guidance for landlords says outlets should be used at least once a week, that a flushing regime or draining should be considered where a property will be vacant for long periods, and names flushing the system before letting as a simple control. With relets averaging 61 to 74 days, most voids need that regime written into the job, not remembered.

Where capture fits, and where it stops

Scotland and Ireland run their own standards (the Scottish Housing Quality Standard, and Ireland's Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2019), so map each check to your own regime. Whatever the regime, the division of labour is the same:

• The qualified person does the check and issues the certificate or report.
• The capture proves the step happened in this void. The operative or engineer starts a capture on their own phone, no link needed: a photo of the certificate, a video of each alarm sounding, each tap and shower running during the flush.
• The case holds it all with a server-verified receipt time, so the sign-off officer isn't chasing paperwork by email on the day of the viewing.

Rechargeable repairs: evidence that holds up

A recharge is only as strong as the dated record behind it, and the strongest record is one made before the tenant left, by the tenant. Cambridge again: outgoing tenants are recharged for tenant damage, unauthorised repairs or improvements, disrepair or neglect, and the cost of removing rubbish, furniture or belongings, valued through a Rechargeable Works Schedule based on the National Schedule of Rates. And the policy is clear on the evidence: "Photographic evidence will be obtained before the void works are carried out to formally record and prove the need for the recharge."

Disputes usually come down to three arguments. "It was like that when I moved in." "That happened after I left." "Nobody told me." Every one of them is a question about dates.

A recharge case that answers all three carries a minimum evidence set:

• The start-of-tenancy record. The condition at move-in, if you captured it. We covered that in tenant self-inspection at check-in.
• The notice record. The pre-termination capture, ideally recorded by the tenant. It's hard to argue with your own video.
• The told-you record. The list of repairs you sent the tenant, with the date it went out, sitting in the case's audit trail.
• The void record. Post-void photos taken before any works start, linked to the notice case.
• The cost. The schedule of rates line for each item, from your own system.

Two features matter here. A form can send the submitter their own copy straight after they submit, so the tenant and the landlord look at the same file if a dispute starts. And each submission carries a digital seal, a SHA-256 fingerprint plus a session timeline of when the link was created, opened and submitted. That sealed submission lets you show later that the file in front of the panel is the file you received.

One honest limit, because it gets oversold. The receipt timestamp is verified on the server and proves when you received the record, not when the damage happened. A capture recorded during the notice period, though, does place the condition before the tenant left, which is the date most recharge disputes turn on. Photos uploaded from the gallery rather than taken in the session are labelled as unverified provenance, so the reviewer knows the difference.

Liability is still a judgement for your officers under your recharge policy. The record makes that judgement easier to defend.

Contractor completion and handover

If the scope was built from photos, the completion should come back as photos too, against the same steps. When the works order goes out, the contractor gets a view link to the notice and void records. No login, no account, just the photos and answers on their phone before the van is loaded. When the job is done, they get a completion capture built from the scoped items and your lettable standard: before and after for each repair, the certificates, the flushing, the alarms.

• Review from the desk. The voids supervisor checks completion against the steps and signs off the clear ones.
• Retake, not revisit. If the bathroom seal photo is missing, the review and retake loop asks for that one step.
• Inspect where it counts. Post-works inspections go to the voids where the capture raises a doubt, and to your sample for quality control.
• Route it. Statuses, owners, an SLA in hours on the route, and workflow automation that forwards the case when it changes status.

The broader pattern is proof of work, and our remote property inspection guide covers contractor accountability across repairs, not just voids.

Handover to the incoming tenant

The handover inspection at sign-up is short if the work above was done. Record three things on the day:

1. Meter readings for gas, electric and water, photographed at keys-out.
2. Alarms tested in front of the new tenant, on video, which gives you a dated record for the English duty that alarms work on the day the tenancy begins.
3. Documents handed over. Your sign-up still issues the gas safety record and the EICR. Add a step that records they were given, so the case shows it.

Then invite the new tenant to record their own check-in capture in the first days. It becomes the start-of-tenancy record for the next void, which closes the loop. Once they're living there, day-to-day faults run through tenant repair reporting with photos instead.

Measure turnaround by stage

A single "average days to relet" number hides where the days went. Time each stage, and you'll know whether earlier information moved anything. Set it up before the first link goes out.

1. Timestamp the stages. Notice received, pre-void capture received, works order raised, keys returned, works started, works completed, tenancy start.
2. Tag the voids. With and without a pre-void capture, standard and major works.
3. Run it for a quarter. Enough voids to see a pattern, short enough that nothing else in your process changed.
4. Compare five numbers: days from keys to works start, scoping visits per void, contractor return visits for materials, recharges raised against recharges recovered, and total days to let.
5. Read the retakes. Each one is a step whose instruction or example photo needs fixing.

What's a day worth? The Scottish regulator's figures allow a rough cut. Divide the rent lost by the number of lets, then by the average days to re-let:

It's rough on purpose. Not every empty home was let in the year, and rents vary by landlord and region. So swap in your own weekly rent and your own void days. The point is the shape: a scoping visit that moves out of stage 2, or a contractor's second trip that never happens, takes days off every void it touches, and the rent line moves with it.

Want to test it on your next few notices? Start for free and build a pre-void flow from your own lettable standard.

Recharge disputes rest on the same kind of dated record as private deposit claims, covered in deposit dispute evidence. If the void shows damp, the reporting duties are in the damp and mould reporting process.

Frequently asked questions

What is a void property inspection?

It's the inspection of a social or rented home once the tenant has left, to confirm it's empty and secure, identify repairs and recharges, arrange safety checks and scope the works to reach the lettable standard. Many landlords pair it with a pre-termination inspection during the notice period. Doing that first look earlier is where most of the time is saved.

What is a pre-termination inspection?

A visit or record made after the tenant gives notice and before they leave. It captures the condition of the home, highlights repairs the tenant should fix before going, and flags likely recharges. A guided capture by the tenant or housing officer can do the recording part without an appointment.

Can a tenant's photos replace the post-void inspection?

No. Someone still needs to secure the home, change the locks, confirm it's empty and judge the scope. The notice capture makes that visit shorter and better informed, and some works orders can be raised before the keys come back.

Do gas and electrical checks between tenancies still need an engineer on site?

Yes. In England, HSE guidance requires an up-to-date gas safety record by a Gas Safe registered engineer before re-letting, and social landlords must have installations tested by a qualified person at least every five years. A capture can hold photos of the certificates and brief the engineer beforehand, but it replaces neither check.

Do outgoing tenants need to download an app?

No. The secure capture link opens in the phone's browser with no app and no account, in the tenant's own language. Where a tenant won't take part, the housing officer runs the same flow on their own phone during the visit.

Will photos from the notice period stand up in a recharge dispute?

They help most when they're dated, structured and unedited. A capture recorded in the session carries a server-verified receipt time and a digital seal, and the tenant can get their own copy. Whether a recharge is fair is still decided under your recharge policy.

How does the record get into our housing management system?

Each case carries your own reference format plus a field for the void or works order number. You can copy the case for your CRM, share a view link with a contractor, or use webhooks and the API to push it into your housing management or repairs system. Routing rules and integrations are set up around your process on a scoping call.

Start with the next notice

Your next void has already started: somewhere, a tenant has handed in notice this week. Build a pre-void flow from your lettable standard, send it to that tenant, and see how much of the scope you can write before the keys come back.

What it takes to start.

• A free plan, no credit card. Build the flow and send it to yourself first.
• Live in 10 minutes for a first standard flow. Stuck? Book a free setup call and we build it with you.
• Your branding, the tenant's language. No app for them to install.

The VentaVid team builds Venta Capture and runs the setup calls on real voids processes.

Start for free and send your first pre-void capture this week. If you'd rather walk through your voids process with us first, book a demo.