How Can Landlords Reduce Void Periods?
You cut void periods by pricing to what comparable homes are letting for right now, starting the re-let the day notice lands, and keeping the tenant you already have. Every empty month costs a landlord outside London roughly £1,800 to £2,250 once council tax, standing charges and re-let costs are added to the lost rent.
Since 1 May 2026 every tenancy is a periodic assured tenancy and a tenant can leave in any month on two months’ notice. Timing your lets for spring no longer protects you.
It also changes what your landlord insurance policy is doing while the property stands empty, because most contracts restrict cover after 30 to 45 days.
Voids shrink when you price against what comparable homes are actually letting for and start marketing the day notice lands rather than the day the keys come back. Keeping the tenant you already have is cheaper than replacing them, so deal with repairs promptly and pitch any rent rise at something they can live with. Now that every tenancy is periodic, a tenant can give notice in any month, so timing lets for spring no longer protects you. Tell your insurer once a property stands empty, because unoccupancy conditions restrict cover after a set number of days.
Compare landlord insurance quotes including cover for unoccupied periods.
- What does an empty month cost you?
- How long do UK void periods last?
- Why has the renters' rights act made voids harder to plan?
- How do you price a property to let fast?
- When should you start re-letting?
- How do you keep the tenant you already have?
- What happens to your insurance while the property is empty?
- What is the council tax position on an empty rental?
- Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
What does an empty month cost you?
Far more than the rent you did not collect. On the UK average rent the true figure lands between £1,780 and £2,250 for a single empty month.
The bills that do not stop
The Office for National Statistics put average UK private rent at £1,393 a month in July 2026, rising to £2,317 in London and falling to £843 in Wales. Every day past the last tenant’s departure is income you never recover.
Council tax, energy standing charges and insurance carry on regardless. So does the payment on a buy-to-let mortgage, which is usually the largest single line.
| Cost line | Typical empty month | Where the figure comes from |
| Lost rent, UK average | £1,393 | ONS private rent index, July 2026 |
| Lost rent, London average | £2,317 | ONS private rent index, July 2026 |
| Council tax, England Band D | £199 | £2,392 a year average for 2026-27 |
| Gas and electricity standing charges | £26 | Ofgem cap: 54.83p and 29.68p a day |
| Landlord insurance, still running | £15 to £35 | Annual premium spread monthly |
| Service charge and ground rent, flats | £80 to £250 | Typical leasehold block |
| Re-let costs spread over the void | £150 to £450 | Cleaning, photography, referencing, portal fees |
| Total, one empty month outside London | £1,780 to £2,250 | Sum of the above |
Why the cost is rising faster than the void itself
Average Band D council tax in England rose 4.9% to £2,392 for 2026-27, and standing charges moved the same way. A void of the same length costs more than it did two years ago.
How long do UK void periods last?
About 24 days between tenancies on the England average, which is roughly three and a half weeks of lost rent. Anything past six weeks usually means the price is wrong rather than the market is.
The national picture
Letting agent data reported by Simply Business in June 2026 puts the average England void at 24 days and the average cost of one void at £1,135. That is close to 13% up on the year before.
London runs the shortest voids at about 16.6 days, but each one costs more at around £1,252. High rents make a short gap expensive.
Why the average hides more than it shows
A well-priced two-bed flat in a university city can re-let inside a week. A four-bed detached at £2,400 a month in a thin market can sit for three months.
Rooms in an HMO let faster than whole properties because the rent per person is lower and the tenant pool is deeper. The trade-off is more turnover events every year.
Why has the renters’ rights act made voids harder to plan?
Because a tenant can now end a periodic assured tenancy in any month on two months’ notice, and you cannot contract for longer. Fixed re-letting seasons no longer exist.
Two months’ notice, any month of the year
Section 20 of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 amended the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 so that a tenant’s notice to quit must be given at least two months before it takes effect. The Act came into force on 1 May 2026.
There is no fixed term left to run to an end. A tenant who moves in during August can serve notice in October and be gone before Christmas.
You cannot ask for more notice than the act allows
Two months is a ceiling as well as a floor, so a clause demanding three or six months will not bite. The only permitted variation is a shorter period you agree in writing.
That single change is why the spring letting season is no longer a plan. The government’s guide to the Renters’ Rights Act is the plain-English summary to hand a tenant who queries any of it.
What replaces the spring letting season
Listing every property in April stops working when notice can land in November. The defence is a standing re-let process rather than a calendar.
Landlords with several properties used to stagger fixed terms deliberately. With no fixed terms left to stagger, a portfolio landlord policy with one renewal date is easier to run than tenancy dates you no longer control.
How do you price a property to let fast?
Price against what comparable homes are letting for this month, not what you achieved two years ago. Overpricing by 5% is the most common cause of a six-week void.
The two-week rule
If a listing has produced no viewing requests after 14 days, the price is the problem. Judge comparables by how quickly they disappear from the portals, because an asking rent nobody paid tells you nothing.
The arithmetic of holding out
Hold out for £1,450 instead of £1,400 and you gain £50 a month. Wait six extra weeks to get it and the void has already cost you about £2,400 in rent and running costs.
That takes four years of the higher rent to recover. A tenant who leaves after 18 months means you never break even at all.
When should you start re-letting?
The day the notice arrives, not the day the keys come back. Two months of notice is enough to re-let with no gap at all if you use the first week of it.
The eight-week re-let timetable
- Week 1: confirm the end date in writing, book the check-out and list the property at a price you have checked against current lets.
- Weeks 2 to 4: run viewings while the outgoing tenant is still in place, with 24 hours’ notice and their agreement.
- Week 5: reference your chosen applicant, since online referencing turns around in 24 to 48 hours.
- Week 6: book the clean, any repairs and the gas and electrical checks for the day after check-out.
- Weeks 7 to 8: sign the agreement, protect the deposit and hand over keys within 48 hours of the old tenancy ending.
Nothing on that list needs the property to be empty. Most voids happen because the work starts at check-out instead of at notice.
Photography and the first three seconds
Most tenants filter listings on a phone and decide in seconds. Dark, cluttered or heavily wide-angled photos lose the property before the rent is even read.
Professional photography costs £100 to £250 and a video tour cuts wasted viewings. Both are cheaper than a single week of void.
Widening the pool without dropping the rent
- Accepting tenants on housing benefit widens the pool sharply, though you need a DSS landlord policy rather than a standard contract.
- Saying yes to a pet request costs nothing and tenants with pets tend to stay longer, because their own search is harder.
- Bridging a stubborn gap with short stays can work, but tell your insurer first because it needs Airbnb and short-let cover.
How do you keep the tenant you already have?
Retention is now the cheapest void strategy there is. Keeping a good tenant for one more year saves the whole cost of a void plus the re-let bill, which is £1,500 to £2,600 on an average property.
The renewal conversation
Ask every six months whether the tenant is settled and whether anything needs fixing. You will hear about a move before the notice arrives, which buys you weeks of warning.
Put the question in writing so you have a record of the answer. The NRLA publishes tenancy management guidance and template letters for members if you would rather not draft your own.
Rent reviews that do not trigger a move
On a £1,393 rent a 7% increase adds £97 a month, while 3% adds £42. The £55 gap is worth £660 over a year, well under the £1,135 a typical void costs in lost rent alone.
| Retention tactic | What it costs you | What it is worth |
| Six-monthly check-in on repairs and plans | Nothing | Early warning of a move, worth 2 to 4 weeks of re-let time |
| Hold the rent review to 3% rather than 7% | £660 a year on a £1,393 rent | Avoids a £1,780 to £2,250 void, so it pays for itself in one save |
| Fix reported repairs inside seven days | £0 to £300 per job | Heating and damp complaints are the most common reason tenants move |
| Handle a pet request properly | Nothing | Pet owners search a thinner market and stay longer |
| Mid-tenancy carpet or redecoration | £300 to £800 | About a third of one void, and it lifts the rent on the next let |
| Give a rent-review date in writing at the start | Nothing | Removes the surprise that makes tenants start looking |
The repairs that decide it
Heating, hot water and damp are the three complaints that turn into a move. Landlord home emergency cover gets a boiler seen the same day rather than the next week.
A tenant who waits a fortnight for a plumber starts browsing the portals. One seen inside 48 hours usually stays another year.
What happens to your insurance while the property is empty?
Most landlord policies restrict cover once the property has been empty for 30 to 45 consecutive days, usually down to fire, lightning, explosion and aircraft only. Theft, escape of water and malicious damage typically fall away at that point.
The 30 to 45 day restriction
Check your wording for the unoccupancy clause, which insurers set at 30, 45 or 60 days. Past that point you need unoccupied property insurance rather than the standard contract.
An undeclared empty property is one of the most common reasons a claim gets cut or refused, alongside the other things that invalidate a policy. The clock usually runs on consecutive days, so a single overnight visit does not reset it.
What to tell your insurer
- The date the property became empty, not the date you got round to reporting it.
- Whether the heating is left on, whether the water is drained down and how often somebody inspects.
- Ask for the unoccupancy endorsement in writing, including any inspection frequency it requires.
A change of occupancy is a material fact, and the ABI sets out how insurers treat non-disclosure of one. Weekly or fortnightly inspections are a common condition on longer voids.
What void cover does and does not exist
Rent guarantee insurance pays when a tenant in place stops paying. It never pays for an empty month, because there is no tenancy and no arrears.
Loss of rent cover only responds when the property is uninhabitable after an insured event such as a fire or a flood. A void caused by the market is not an insured event.
Keep the landlord buildings cover running throughout, because your lender requires it and an empty property is more exposed rather than less. In a block of flats the freeholder’s policy continues, but the service charge arrives whether or not you have a tenant.
What is the council tax position on an empty rental?
You are liable from the day the tenancy ends until a new tenant moves in, and any discount is entirely at your council’s discretion. Leave the property empty for a year and the bill can double.
Who pays between tenancies
Liability falls back to the owner as soon as there is no resident tenant. Some councils still allow a short empty-property discount, but as gov.uk sets out, the amount is up to them.
Most English councils removed the old six-month exemption years ago. Assume you are paying the full bill from day one and treat a discount as a bonus.
The empty homes premium
The premium is charged on top of the full bill once a property has been empty and substantially unfurnished for long enough. It is the reason a slow sale or a stalled refurbishment gets expensive.
| How long the property has been empty | Maximum council tax charge | What that means on an England Band D bill |
| Under 12 months, actively marketed to let | Full bill, premium exception applies | £2,392 a year |
| 12 months or more | Up to 100% premium | Up to £4,784 a year |
| 5 years or more | Up to 200% premium | Up to £7,176 a year |
| 10 years or more | Up to 300% premium | Up to £9,568 a year |
| Major repairs or structural work | Exception of up to 12 months | £2,392 a year while the work runs |
The 12-month exception for a property actively marketed for let is the one that matters most between tenancies. Keep the listing live and dated so you can prove it.
Claiming void costs against tax
Council tax, insurance, standing charges, cleaning and advertising during a void are allowable expenses while the property is genuinely available to let, as the gov.uk guidance on paying tax when you rent out a property sets out.
The evidence that the property was available is what supports the deduction, so keep the dated listing and the agent correspondence. This is general information rather than tax advice, and your own position is worth checking with an accountant.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Any stretch where the property is available to let but has no paying tenant in it. It starts the day the old tenancy ends, not the day the property is cleaned.
Most buy-to-let terms do not require you to report a normal gap between tenancies. A long void or a switch to short-term letting usually does need consent.
No. Leave it on a low frost setting through winter, because a burst pipe in an empty property is exactly the claim your insurer may decline.
Yes, with their agreement and at least 24 hours’ written notice. Viewings during the notice period are the single biggest reason some landlords never have a void at all.
If your own marketing regularly leaves the property empty for more than six weeks, a fee of 8% to 12% of rent usually costs less than the voids. Below four weeks the maths rarely works.
Possession runs through the Section 8 grounds and the notice period depends on which ground you use. The grounds for selling or moving in yourself cannot be used in the first 12 months of a tenancy.
A current gas safety record, an electrical installation condition report, a valid EPC and working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. Book them for the day after check-out so they never hold up a move-in.
Cancellation is rare, but cover is usually cut back to a short list of perils after 30 to 45 days. Tell the insurer and buy an unoccupied endorsement rather than hoping.
No. It covers unpaid rent from a tenant who is in place, so it does nothing for a month with no tenancy running.
It can cover the bills on a stubborn void, but it changes your insurance, your mortgage position and often your council’s licensing rules. Get all three confirmed before the first booking.