Every day a property sits empty between tenancies costs money — in lost rent, in standing
charges on the energy supply, and in the staff hours spent moving the void through the system.
For most social landlords, average void period length is one of the most closely watched
operational metrics, and for good reason: shave a few days off the average across a portfolio of
thousands of properties and the saving runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.
The frustrating part is that void periods rarely drag on for one big reason. They drag on for lots
of small ones — a works order waiting for sign-off, a meter with no power, a key that never
made it back. Here are five levers that consistently move the average down, drawn from what
actually works across UK housing providers.
Every day a property sits empty between tenancies costs money — in lost rent, in standing
charges on the energy supply, and in the staff hours spent moving the void through the system.
For most social landlords, average void period length is one of the most closely watched
operational metrics, and for good reason: shave a few days off the average across a portfolio of
thousands of properties and the saving runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.
The frustrating part is that void periods rarely drag on for one big reason. They drag on for lots
of small ones — a works order waiting for sign-off, a meter with no power, a key that never
made it back. Here are five levers that consistently move the average down, drawn from what
actually works across UK housing providers.
1. Fix the energy supply before the works start, not after
One of the most common hidden delays is a property that can’t be worked on because it has no
power. A contractor turns up to a void, finds the electricity meter is on a prepayment setting with
no credit, or that there’s debt on the meter blocking the supply, and the visit is wasted. The
works slip a week while someone sorts the energy out.
The fix is to treat the energy supply as a day-one task, not something that gets dealt with
reactively when a contractor flags it. The moment a property goes void, the supply should be
identified, any debt cleared, and power confirmed available — so that when works are scheduled, the property is ready.
2. Get meter readings at the point of handover
When a tenant moves out without a final meter reading, the outgoing bill becomes an estimate
— and estimates get disputed, corrected, and re-issued for months. That admin tail doesn’t stop the property being re-let, but it ties up staff time and clouds your cost data.
Capturing an accurate reading at the moment of handover closes the previous account cleanly
and starts the void account from a known position. It’s a small discipline that removes a surprising amount of downstream noise.
3. Run void energy as a parallel process, not a sequential one
Many void processes are sequential: works finish, then someone deals with the utilities, then
the property is marketed. Each handoff adds a queue.
Void energy management can run entirely in parallel with the repairs and cleaning. Supplier
liaison, debt clearance, meter checks and billing setup don’t need the property to be physically
ready — they can all happen while the works are underway, so the energy side is finished the
moment the works are. This single change in sequencing often removes whole days from the
average.
4. Centralise supplier contact instead of spreading it across officers
If every housing officer or void coordinator deals with energy suppliers individually, you get
inconsistency: different officers know different supplier processes, calls sit in different inboxes,
and nobody builds up the supplier relationships that get things done quickly. Each query starts
from scratch.
Consolidating supplier contact — whether to a single internal team or an outsourced specialist
— means one set of relationships, one consistent process, and far less time lost to hold music.
Suppliers respond faster to a known, high-volume contact than to dozens of one-off enquiries.
5. Measure the energy portion of your void time separately
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Most landlords track total void period length but
don’t break out how much of it is attributable to energy-related delays. Without that breakdown,
energy delays hide inside the total and never get addressed.
Start logging when energy issues cause a delay — a wasted contractor visit, a works order held
for power, a billing query that needed chasing. Even a rough tally over a quarter will show you
whether energy is a meaningful slice of your void time. For most portfolios, it is — and it’s a slice
that’s very fixable.
The compound effect
None of these five levers is dramatic on its own. But void period length is a cumulative metric —
it’s the sum of lots of small delays. Remove the energy-related delays systematically and the
average comes down measurably, without hiring more people or compromising on the quality of
the re-let.
Voids rarely drag on for one big reason. They drag on for lots of small ones — and energy is one of the most fixable.
If you’d like to talk through how TSM helps housing providers take the energy side of voids off
their desk entirely, get in touch for a callback.