The Between-Tenancy Roof Checklist for Beverley Landlords

The void period between tenancies is the most under-used window in a landlord’s year. With no tenant to work around, no access notice to give and no one inconvenienced by noise or scaffold, it is the ideal time to deal with the roof works that are awkward or impossible during a let. A short, systematic roof check between tenancies catches small faults before they become the next tenant’s emergency — and the next disrepair report. Here is the checklist we use on Beverley and Hull rentals.

Why the void is the right moment

During a tenancy, roof work means access notices, disruption, and often deferring anything non-urgent. In a void, all of that disappears. You can run a proper inspection, do the noisy roofline job, clear and treat moss, and reset the property to a documented baseline — all without costing yourself a single day of let income if it is planned to overlap the changeover. Skip it, and you start the next tenancy with unknown roof condition and the clock already running on any latent defect.

The between-tenancy roof checklist

Whether you do the visual parts yourself or have us survey it, work through the roof systematically:

• Covering: any slipped, cracked or missing tiles or slates; signs of nail sickness (tiles slipping in a line across a slope).
• Ridge and hips: loose or cracked mortar bedding; a dry-fix upgrade is worth considering where the old mortar is failing.
• Valleys: debris, cracked mortar or tired lead — the number-one leak point on older terraced stock.
• Chimney: pointing, flaunching, pot and — above all — the lead flashing where the stack meets the roof.
• Gutters, fascias and soffits: clear the gutters, check the fall, look for soft or rotten timber, and confirm the roof space is still ventilated.
• Flat roofs: ponding, blistering, splits and the condition of upstands and outlets.
• Roof space: daylight through the covering, damp on timbers, and adequate ventilation — the condensation early-warning.

The jobs that belong in a void

Some works are simply better done empty. Full roofline renewal — fascia, soffit, bargeboard and gutter — is noisy eaves work that is far easier without a tenant beneath it. Moss treatment and clearance is best completed and settled before someone moves in. Any deferred repair you have been putting off around the tenancy can finally be cleared. And if a survey reveals early nail sickness on a slope — common now on Beverley’s inter-war Molescroft and Grovehill semis — the void is the moment to plan the slope re-cover rather than face a run of in-tenancy call-outs.

Clearing gutters: the cheapest insurance there is

If you do only one thing between tenancies, clear the gutters and valleys. On Hull’s tree-lined Avenues, autumn leaf fall blocks them almost every year, and a blocked valley or overflowing gutter is behind a large share of penetrating-damp reports into top-floor flats. Ten minutes of clearance and a flow test in a void prevents a winter of water down an internal wall — and the tenant email that comes with it.

DIY checks versus a professional survey

Plenty of the void checklist can be done from the ground with binoculars and from inside the loft: spotting slipped tiles, checking for daylight through the covering, looking for damp on timbers, and clearing accessible gutters. That is worth doing at every changeover. But going onto a roof is genuinely dangerous — falls from height remain the biggest killer in the trades — and a ground-level look misses the things that actually cause leaks: the condition of lead valleys and flashings, hairline cracks in flaunching, lifting laps on a flat roof, and early nail sickness that only shows when you handle the tiles. For anything beyond a visual check, a professional survey is both safer and more accurate, and on an older or larger property it pays for itself the first time it catches something a ground-level glance would have missed.

Building roof maintenance into your budget

For landlords with more than one property, the void checklist is really the front end of a maintenance budget. Roofs do not fail on a convenient schedule, but they do fail predictably by age and type: concrete-tile estate roofs reach nail-sickness age at 40–60 years, felt flat roofs need attention at 10–15, and lead valleys and flashings on older stock need periodic renewal. Recording each property’s roof condition and age at every void lets you forecast the big spends — a slope re-cover here in two years, a flat roof there next winter — and set money aside rather than being ambushed by an emergency. A planned inspection schedule with a simple 5 and 10-year forecast turns the roof from an unpredictable risk into a budgeted line, which is exactly how a professional landlord treats it.

Flat roofs need void attention most of all

If your rental has a flat roof — over an extension, a dormer or a whole single-storey let — the void is doubly important, because flat roofs give less warning before they leak. Check for ponding (water still standing more than a day or two after rain), blistering or splitting in the covering, and the condition of the upstands where the flat roof meets a wall, which is where most flat-roof leaks actually start. A flat roof approaching the end of a felt life is far better replaced in a planned void — with the falls corrected and a warm-deck build-up — than left to fail over a tenant’s kitchen mid-tenancy. Catching it empty saves the internal damage entirely.

Turn the void into a record, not just a repair

The final step is documentation. A between-tenancy roof inspection with dated photographs gives you a baseline: you know the exact condition at handover, and if a problem is later reported you can see what changed. It also demonstrates, if a dispute ever arises, that you inspect and maintain proactively — the hallmark of a landlord who takes s.11 and the fitness duty seriously. We provide that report as standard on planned inspections.

Local timing: work with the East Yorkshire weather

One practical note for Beverley and Hull: programme the weather-sensitive jobs sensibly. Lime repointing on a period chimney wants a frost-free, not-too-dry spell; GRP flat-roofing wants a dry deck; moss treatment works best applied with settled weather to follow. A void in spring or early autumn is ideal for the discretionary work, while urgent make-safe and gutter clearance can be done any time. Plan the void around the roof, and the roof will not interrupt the tenancy.

A short checklist to keep

To pull it together, here is the void-period roof routine in brief: clear the gutters and valleys and flow-test them; scan every slope for slipped, cracked or missing tiles and any line of slippage that hints at nail sickness; check ridge and hip mortar; inspect the chimney flashing, flaunching and pointing; look over any flat roof for ponding, blisters and tired upstands; go into the loft for daylight, damp timbers and adequate ventilation; fix what is found; and photograph the lot with dates. Run through that at each changeover and you will catch the overwhelming majority of roof problems before they ever reach a tenant — which is the entire point of using the void well. If you would rather not climb the ladder, we carry out the whole inspection, provide the dated report, and quote for anything that needs doing, all inside the void so it never touches your letting time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What roof jobs are best done between tenancies?

Anything noisy or access-heavy: full roofline (fascia, soffit, gutter) renewal, moss treatment and clearance, deferred repairs, and a full inspection. If a survey finds early nail sickness, the void is the moment to plan a slope re-cover rather than face in-tenancy call-outs.

How often should a rental roof be inspected?

A quick visual check at every void, plus a fuller inspection every few years or after severe weather, is a sensible baseline. Older stock and properties on tree-lined streets (with annual gutter blockage) benefit from more frequent gutter and valley clearance.

Is a between-tenancy roof inspection worth the cost?

Almost always. Catching a lifting flashing, blocked valley or slipped tile in a void is far cheaper than the emergency call-out, water damage and tenant complaint it becomes if left — and the dated report gives you a maintenance record that protects you in any dispute.