Void Properties Utility Management

Portsmouth City Council (the Council) is inviting tenders from suitably qualified and experienced suppliers to provide Void Property Management services for Gas and Power. Portsmouth City Council manages approximately 17,500 homes in its immediate and surrounding areas.

These are sites that contain tenants who for the duration of their tenancy agreement, will be responsible to pay for their own utilities directly with suppliers of their choice. Approximately 900 properties encounter a change of tenancy within the year, which results in a void period of approximately 40 days, where the council then becomes responsible for all utilities.

Historically the council were able to streamline the void utilities management through a void property management company, which enabled benefits such as; a dedicated account manager, one centralised platform to communicate change of tenancy updates, remote debt clearances/meter top up requests, automated supplier switching upon tenants leaving the property and other several streamlined processes. The management company has since this time withdrawn its services from the void utilities market.

As a result, Portsmouth City Council is currently having to manage the void properties with lots of manual interventions across various suppliers, so is looking to streamline the process once again by newly appointing a utility managing agent for the void properties. The contract will be awarded for an initial period of two years with option to extend for a further two years, in increments to be agreed, up to a maximum duration of four years.