Vacant property protection

A specialist operating model for difficult vacant properties where ordinary guardianship is too thin, static guarding is too expensive, and charity occupation has to be real.


Every month a commercial property sits vacant, the owner pays rates on a building generating nothing, watches the fabric deteriorate without anyone inside to notice, and carries squatting, vandalism, and insurance risk that compounds in silence. The conventional answer is a security guard at twelve thousand a month who watches a door and changes nothing.


Or the building is occupied by vetted, managed Trained Licensees who live in it under clear provisions of a licence and an Operating Manual, around the clock, maintain it through daily presence, convert squatting from a civil nuisance into a criminal offence, and cost the owner little compared with the above solution.

Managed Trained Licensees as protection for vacant commercial properties. Reduced holding cost. Criminal squatter deterrence. Practical control until sale, redevelopment or transfer.

Get in touch
See the financials
The problem

An empty building is not neutral. It is a running cost. Rates, insurance, deterioration, squatting risk, and vandalism compound every month the property sits vacant. There is a better comparison than doing nothing.
The model

Trained Licensees under a rigorous Operating Manual. 24/7 presence. The building maintained, reported on, and kept under practical control. Squatting becomes a criminal offence. The owner's cost drops dramatically.
The visit

We do not pitch. We assess. A suitability visit on the specific building, delivering a straight answer on capacity, usable areas, setup works, and whether the property is viable at all.
Rates relief

A registered charity operating from within the building. Veteran housing and veterans support. Genuine occupation qualifying for up to 100% business rates relief for the property owner.
The Founder

Military service, construction, and over a decade of hands-on experience in vacant commercial property protection, building assessment, fire safety, and occupation setup. Not outsourced. Done on site, in person, on the day.
Contact

If you are carrying a vacant commercial property and want a straight answer on whether managed occupation with Trained Licensees can work for your building, get in touch.
The financials

Before we go to the financials, allow us to say something.

"No man or woman who accepted the possibility of death for this nation shall ever know scarcity of life."

That is the line our charity was built on. Right now, veterans who served this country are sleeping on its streets. One room in your building, twelve months, and a structured programme through a registered charity gives one of them a path back to stable employment and independent living. A soup kitchen and shower facility in the same building serves some others, vetted and referred through reputable veteran associations, who are not yet ready for the programme but need somewhere to start.

That is what your empty building can do while it waits for its next purpose. The full story is at veteraninneed.org.

Now, let's see the numbers, and you'll find that a noble act can also go along a profitable venture.

OptionAnnual cost to ownerSquatting statusBuilding condition
24/7 SIA security£149,000Civil matter, unchangedGuard on door, no fabric monitoring
CCTV and alarm£5,000 to £10,000Civil matter, unchangedRecords damage, prevents nothing
Do nothing£30,000 to £100,000 in rates alone, plus insurance and decayCivil matter, fully exposedDeterioration accelerating, unmonitored
Trained Licensees occupation with charityCosts for running utilities and the usual certificatesCriminal offence under LASPO. Rates relief 80 to 100%Occupied, heated, monitored daily. One veteran housed

In short: even with you paying the utilities, the financial comparison is completely absurd. We are not asking you to give us charity. We are proposing to save you tens of thousands of pounds a year while providing a live-in military-experience presence that is inherently more secure than a demotivated, minimum-wage static guard, and also to get the "feel good" of doing something about the delicate issues of the veterans abandoned by society.

Trained Licensees

Trained Licensees are vetted working veterans who occupy vacant commercial properties under the clear provisions of a licence and an Operating Manual. They are referred by veteran associations. They are not security guards. They hold no SIA authority and carry no special powers. They are veterans who have been referred, inducted, and trained to live in a managed property to a defined standard.

Every Trained Licensee provides identification, proof of employment, bank statements, an employment reference, and a DBS criminal record check. Every Trained Licensee reads and signs the Operating Manual and the licence agreement before moving in. The Operating Manual covers property care, fire safety, cleanliness, conduct, reporting, and the conditions under which the licence can be terminated immediately.

The building is protected not by equipment or authority but by the constant presence of people who live in it, know it, and are personally accountable for its condition. That presence is more effective than any guard on a door or camera on a wall.