Property CareHome › Home care plans
Stewardship, as a service.
Ongoing home care and maintenance plans across Huntingdonshire. Homes are lived in. They should be cared for the same way. Many problems announce themselves quietly: a slight discolouration, a new draught, a hinge that feels different. The home is constantly communicating. Our care plans are simply the discipline of listening regularly, so small things are caught while they are still small. For busy households they mean the house is handled without managing it; for landlords, a protected property, a looked-after tenant and one tidy invoice.
Three levels of care
We have written down the whole year, season by season, in the year in a house. A care plan is simply that list, done by us, on a rhythm.
Every plan is a rolling arrangement with thirty days' notice, because a plan should earn its keep, not rely on a contract. Prices shown are indicative for a typical family home; we confirm yours in writing after a first visit.
Seasonal Care
Two visits a year
From £45 / month
Spring and autumn visits, when homes need attention most.
- Seasonal checklist: seals, hinges, draughts, gutters, external joinery
- Small fixes done on the spot, within the visit
- Written note of anything to watch, and anything that can safely wait
- Photos of areas you never see: roofline, gutters, behind and beneath
Quarterly Care
Four visits a year
From £79 / month
The rhythm most homes settle into.
- Everything in Seasonal Care, every quarter
- Your rolling to-do list, managed and worked through visit by visit
- Priority scheduling when one-off jobs come up
- A standing eye on the things you have learned to live with
Full Stewardship
A visit every month
From £159 / month
For busy households, larger homes and second homes.
- Everything in Quarterly Care, every month
- First-call priority, including coordination of vetted specialists
- Annual Home Health Review: the state of your home, in plain English
- Preferential rates on quoted works
A plan is not a cheaper way to buy visits. It is a cheaper way to own a house.See what the same work costs one job at a time Read the Book of Care →
How the plan price works, since it is worth saying plainly. A plan is not a discount on visits. Do the arithmetic on Seasonal Care and it comes to roughly what two half-days would have cost you anyway, and we would far rather you learned that here than felt misled later.
What a plan changes is the year, not the visit. Easing a door before it drops is £65; hanging the replacement once it has is £380. Renewing sealant is £180; the bathroom floor it would have saved is a great deal more. Multiply that across a whole house and the saving is real, but it lives in the jobs that never happen rather than in the price of the ones that do.
There is no minimum term and no tie-in, and 30 days' notice ends it.
The only condition attached: if you leave inside the first year, we add up the visits you actually had at our ordinary published prices, subtract what you have paid, and you settle any difference. You will never pay more than somebody who was never a member, we always show you the arithmetic, and if the difference comes to less than £100 we write it off rather than invoice you for leaving.
Anything yearly, like the Annual Home Health Review, falls due on your anniversary rather than in week one. The full wording is in the terms.
Beyond maintenance
Maintenance is reactive: something breaks, someone fixes it, life continues. Stewardship asks a different question. What could be done today that would improve tomorrow?
Replacing ageing sealant before water finds its way behind a shower. Repainting external joinery before moisture reaches bare timber. Lubricating hinges before wear becomes damage. None of it is dramatic. Most of it works out cheaper than the alternative, and where it does not we will tell you.
Here is the arithmetic, using our own published guide prices. A gutter joint remade and sealed is £95. Left to run down a wall for two winters, tracing the penetrating damp is £310 and treating the mould and making the surface good is £220. So £95 becomes £530, and nobody has decorated yet. Renewing a run of silicone is £110; water behind a shower tray is a bathroom. Every one of those figures sits in our published guide prices, and you are welcome to check the sums.
Very few people remember when a wall was painted or a gate was adjusted. They remember that the house always felt looked after. That things simply worked. That living there felt easy.
Homes breathe differently through the year
A care plan is really just the discipline of arriving at the right time. Every season asks something different of a building, and almost all of it is cheaper when it is expected.
Spring
Renewal and fresh starts. Ventilation checked after a shut-up winter, exterior joinery looked over before the weather turns kind, and the decorating that always waits for longer days.
Summer
Protection while the weather allows it. Timber care, painting, fences and gates treated, and the outdoor living that only works if somebody prepared for it.
Autumn
Preparation. Gutters and drainage cleared, draughts found before they matter, and the small weatherproofing jobs that decide how a house feels in January.
Winter
Warmth, comfort and planning. Indoor repairs while the garden sleeps, and the quiet months to think properly about what next year should bring.
Not ready to commit to a year of it? Then have the autumn one on its own and see what you make of us. Before the winter is half a day of the jobs that decide how January goes, at our ordinary published rate, with no plan attached and nothing to cancel afterwards.
Asked and answered
What happens on a care visit?
We work through a seasonal checklist for your home: seals, hinges, draughts, gutters, taps, external joinery and the things your home is quietly telling us. Small fixes are done on the spot; anything larger is noted, explained and priced in writing, with a view on whether it can safely wait.
What if you find something bigger?
We show you, explain it plainly, and give you a fixed written price with no obligation. If it can safely wait, we say so. If it needs a registered specialist, such as a Gas Safe engineer, or an electrician for a new circuit, a consumer unit or anything inside a bathroom, we tell you and can bring in someone we trust.
How do I pay?
Monthly in advance by Direct Debit, which we set up through GoCardless. You enter your bank details on their secure page, so we never see them. The first payment is usually about a week after you sign, and you are covered by the Direct Debit Guarantee: we must tell you the amount and date before every collection, and your bank must refund you immediately if anything is ever taken in error.
Am I locked into a contract?
No. Plans are rolling arrangements with thirty days' notice. If a plan is not earning its keep, we would rather you stop than resent it.
Is a plan cheaper than just calling when things break?
Sometimes no, and we say so. What a plan buys is early attention: problems caught while they are still small, priority scheduling, and a home that always feels looked after. Prevention is rarely dramatic. Nothing happening is the result you are paying for.
Do you cover gas and electrical work?
Regulated work belongs with registered specialists: Gas Safe for gas, G3 for unvented cylinders, and NICEIC or NAPIT for anything notifiable, meaning new circuits, consumer units and work inside a bathroom. Care plan visits will flag concerns, and we coordinate vetted specialists when they are needed, so you still have only one conversation to manage.
These are starting points, not a menu. Combine them, split them, or ask for the one job you actually want. If that is a single curtain pole, send us that one line and a single curtain pole is all we will price.
The bit nobody likes to raise
A regular arrangement usually means we come when you are out, and that means a key or a code. It is the part of this that gives people pause, and quite right too. So here is how we handle it, without waiting to be asked.
We hold a Basic DBS check and will show you the certificate any time you want to see it. Keys are logged, never labelled with an address, kept secure rather than rattling around a van, and handed back or destroyed the day an arrangement ends. If you would rather use a key safe, or be in for every visit, or have us text before we set off, all of that is fine and none of it is a problem.
You will also always know who is coming. If it will not be the person you met, we say so first.
You may well not need a plan. If your house is in good order and you are the sort who notices a dripping gutter, a plan is a convenience rather than a necessity, and we will say so at the first visit. Plans suit people who would rather not think about it, or who are not there to notice.
Chapter One of the Book of Care begins: neglect is rarely a decision, it is an accumulation. That is the whole argument for a plan.
Not sure which plan fits?
Start with a first visit. We will walk your home with you, tell you what we find, and recommend a plan only if one genuinely makes sense. If you have questions first, most are answered plainly here, and this is who you would be dealing with.