advice on leaving home empty

[surferjoe]

We just bought a house about 200 miles from where we are renting, but we can't move in for about 5 months because my wife is still working full time until she retires in 5 months.
We will be able to go there every few weeks for a few days at a time, but I'm worried about leaving the property unoccupied most of the time.
Does anyone have any sort of advice about how to deal with this situation?
We don't want to rent the place out since we will be coming by to do some work on it periodically.
My wife suggested maybe hiring a cleaning person to come by even if there was nothing to clean.
Thanks for any advice.

Could you ask the previous owners about neighbours who are friendly and helpful and who might keep an eye on the place for you?

Check your insurance. There may be restrictions.
I can't remember the details but we had to leave PIL house unoccupied for several months (emptying it during lockdown) and only part of the house insurance remained live.
Set heating to come on if it drops below a certain temperature so you don't get frozen/burst pipes

We had to spend one night a month at mil’s to keep her house insurance active when she moved into a home before we sold the house. If you’ve already retired you could go and stay for a few days on your own and get some jobs done.

You've not said what your personal circumstances are, but could you go and stay in the house for a bit whilst your wife remains in the rental or are you also still working? That way you could get on with the jobs that need doing in the new place.
My husband and I did this when he was leaving the military, I went to the house we bought and did some renovating whilst he carried on working and packing up, he would come up most weekends and bring some boxes or I would go back if I needed a break.
Might not be practical given you'd need some basics like a bed, a chair, cooking stuff etc and prob a car but could be an option.

The insurance company will have some requirements.
For us, heating on 10C minimium, and a weekly visit.

I'd get some blinds and lights controlled by e.g. Alexa and set them up.

A cleaner - and maybe a gardener - sounds like a plan. Could you maybe have a cleaner once a fortnight, and a gardener the other weeks. Post and junk mail needs clearing fairly frequently.

Gardener is a good call - we had someone go every other week so that the garden was tidy - made it looked more lived in too.

Thanks. I’m not sure what we will do yet. Some sort of periodic caretaker might work, or I was thinking of some security camera system to keep an eye on the property and be able to call the police if I saw something.
We do hope to go over as often as possible and see if we can meet some neighbours.

Definitely make sure you have good insurance... When you do go take fotos with dates.. friend had a pipe leak and luckily had proof had been there recently as insurance v funny about it