Welcome to HQN’s updated empty homes toolkit. As part of our work with members, we have come across excellence in empty property management (in one case leading to an average re-let time of 13 days) and, let’s face it, very poor performance with average re-let times into three figures. When we have challenged poor performance, we have sometimes been told “we’ve not yet recovered from the pandemic” (for those who are too young to remember it, the pandemic took place in 2020) or that “the RSH isn’t that bothered about re-let times”. My answer to the latter is “it’s not all about the Regulator. Perhaps it’s about tenants and, especially, prospective tenants and most especially, prospective tenants in temporary accommodation, sofa surfing or in poor housing situations.”

At HQN, we are passionate about helping providers re-let good quality homes in good time to an acceptable standard. Upper quartile performance on re-letting homes is currently (December 2025) around the 45 day mark. Back in the day, it used to be half that at most. Here at HQN, we are on a mission to get back to those days. We know there are some good reasons why it is more difficult now (eg, availability of the people who do the work, for one), but we like a challenge (and to set you a challenge too).

We have therefore reviewed this toolkit to assist providers in chipping away at those annoying average re-let times by revising this toolkit that tracks the journey from notification of an impending termination of tenancy to the early post-letting period.