Leaving Your GTA Home Empty for the Winter: A Snowbird's Checklist

One phone call determines whether the rest of this list matters. Most home insurance policies restrict or void coverage once a property has been unoccupied beyond a set period, and homeowners find this out when a claim is denied on a house they thought was fully insured. Call your insurer before you book anything else. Then work through the rest of this, which covers water, heat, the person who checks on the place, and the residency rules that follow you south whether you planned for them or not.

Table of Contents

• Start With Insurance
• Water and Heat
• The Person Who Checks
• Making It Look Lived In
• The Mechanical Walkthrough
• Money and Admin on Autopilot
• The Rules That Follow You South
• If You Are Thinking of Renting It Out
• Frequently Asked Questions

Start With Insurance

Ask four specific questions and get the answers in writing rather than over the phone:

How long can the home be unoccupied before coverage changes? Then compare that honestly against your travel dates, including the days on either end.

What exactly do you require while I am away? Many insurers require someone to physically enter and inspect the property at a set interval, often every few days, and some require a written log. Others require the water supply to be shut off, or the heating system to be maintained at a minimum temperature. These are conditions of coverage, not suggestions.

Does anything need to be documented? If your insurer requires inspections, ask what proof they will want if a claim arises. A dated log kept by whoever checks the house costs nothing and settles the argument.

Does anything change if someone stays in the house? A house sitter, an adult child living there, or a tenant each affect the policy differently, and a tenant changes it substantially.

Water and Heat

Water damage is the reason unoccupied winter homes are a problem. A pipe that fails in a house nobody enters runs for days or weeks, and the difference between a plumbing repair and a gutted main floor is how quickly someone notices.

Keep the heat on, always. Do not shut it off to save money. A commonly cited minimum for an unoccupied home is around 15 degrees, but confirm what your insurer requires, because that number can be a condition of coverage. Remember that interior temperature is not uniform: a basement corner or a room over an unheated garage runs colder than the thermostat reading.

Consider shutting off the water supply and draining the system. Where your insurer permits it and the heating system does not depend on the water supply, this is the most effective single step you can take, because a pipe that has no water in it cannot flood the house. It requires doing properly, so have a plumber walk you through it the first time.

Outdoor plumbing. Disconnect and store hoses, shut off the interior valves feeding exterior taps and drain them. Do this regardless of what you decide about the main supply.

Install monitoring. A smart thermostat that alerts you when the temperature falls, and water leak sensors near the water heater, laundry, dishwasher and any basement fixture, cost relatively little and are the difference between a phone call to your neighbour and a March disaster. Confirm they will still function if the internet or power drops.

Sump pump. Test it before you leave and consider a battery backup. A February thaw with a failed pump and nobody in the house is a well documented way to lose a finished basement.

The Person Who Checks

Every other item on this list depends on somebody physically entering the house on a regular schedule. Sensors tell you something is wrong. A person is what stops it.

Choose someone who lives close enough to attend quickly and reliably, whether that is a neighbour, a family member or a paid home watch service. Proximity matters more than the relationship. A son in Oakville who visits monthly is not the same as a neighbour two doors down who walks through weekly.

Give them what they actually need: keys, the alarm code, your contact information including a number that works from Ontario, the insurer's requirements, the location of the water shutoff and the electrical panel, and the name of a plumber and an electrician you would want called. Write it down and leave a copy in the house.

Agree the interval explicitly and match it to whatever your insurer requires. Ask them to keep a simple dated log of each visit. If a claim ever arises, that log is the evidence that you met the conditions of your policy.

Tell them what to look for beyond the obvious: water stains on ceilings, damp smells, a thermostat reading below where it should be, ice buildup at the eaves, condensation on windows, anything running that should not be. And give them authority to act. Someone who has to reach you in a different time zone before calling a plumber will lose hours you cannot afford.

Making It Look Lived In

A house that visibly announces nobody is home invites problems and, in some circumstances, gives an insurer an argument. Most of this is straightforward.

Arrange snow clearing before you leave, not after the first storm. An uncleared driveway after a snowfall is the clearest possible signal that a house is empty. Some municipalities also place obligations on property owners regarding adjacent sidewalks, so check what applies where you live. Book a contractor for the season and confirm they will service the property whether or not anyone calls.

Stop or redirect the mail. Canada Post offers a hold mail service, or have your checker collect it. Deal with flyers and free newspapers too, since an accumulating pile at the door does the same job as an unshovelled drive.

Put a few lights on timers, varying the times, and leave curtains in a normal position rather than sealed shut. Ask a neighbour to park in the driveway occasionally if that is practical.

Be careful what you post. A public countdown to a four month departure, and photographs from the beach in January, tell more people than you intend. Share with people you know rather than publicly, and consider posting after you return.

The Mechanical Walkthrough

Work through this in the week before you leave rather than on departure day.

Service the furnace and replace the filter. A heating system that fails in January is the fastest route to frozen pipes. If it is due for service, do it now, not in the spring.

Clean the gutters and check the roof edge. Blocked gutters contribute to ice damming, which pushes water back under shingles and into the house. This is much harder to address from a thousand kilometres away.

Test smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and replace the batteries. If you have a monitored alarm system, tell the monitoring company you will be away and confirm who they should call.

Deal with the fridge. Either empty and clean it and leave the doors propped open with the unit off, or leave it running with nothing perishable inside. A power interruption to a full fridge nobody opens for four months creates a genuinely unpleasant problem.

Unplug what does not need power and leave essentials connected: heating, sump pump, alarm, monitoring devices, and enough lighting for your timers.

If you live in a condo, notify property management that the unit will be unoccupied and confirm who they should contact in an emergency. Many corporations want this on file and some require it. Ask whether the building has any specific requirements for unoccupied units.

Money and Admin on Autopilot

Small oversights become expensive when you are not there to catch them.

Set up pre authorised payment for property taxes, utilities, insurance, condo fees and the mortgage. A missed property tax instalment accrues interest, and a lapsed insurance payment is a far worse problem than an unpaid bill.

Tell your bank and credit card providers that you will be travelling, so that legitimate transactions are not blocked. Confirm that your online banking works from outside Canada and that any two factor authentication does not depend on a phone number you will not be using.

Leave a document with your checker and one trusted family member listing the insurer and policy number, your alarm company, your preferred plumber and electrician, the mortgage lender, and how to reach you. Keep a copy somewhere you can access from away.

If your municipality operates any form of vacancy or unoccupied property declaration, find out whether it applies to you and what the deadline is. Requirements vary between municipalities and can carry penalties for a missed filing, so check with your municipality directly rather than assuming.

The Rules That Follow You South

Neither of these is a reason not to go. Both are reasons to count your days deliberately rather than discovering afterward that you crossed a line by a week.

Buy proper travel medical insurance and read what it excludes. Pre existing condition clauses, stability periods and coverage caps vary enormously between policies, and the cheapest option is frequently cheap for reasons that matter. Declare everything accurately on the application, since an inaccurate declaration is the most common reason a large claim gets denied.

If You Are Thinking of Renting It Out

Covering your carrying costs with a winter tenant is appealing and it is more complicated than it sounds.

Your insurance changes, and a standard homeowner policy generally does not cover a tenanted property. Tell your insurer before you advertise, not afterward.

Rental income is taxable and has to be reported. There may also be implications for the principal residence exemption depending on the arrangement and how long it runs, which is worth understanding before you commit rather than at tax time.

Ontario residential tenancy law provides tenants with significant protections, and a tenancy is not automatically over because you told someone it was for four months. Getting a property back on a specific date is not as simple as many owners assume. Speak to a lawyer before you enter into anything.

Short term rental arrangements bring their own layer, including municipal licensing or registration requirements that vary between municipalities and condominium rules that often prohibit them outright. Check both before you list anything anywhere.

Note: This article is general information and is not insurance, legal, tax or medical advice. Insurance policy terms, vacancy provisions and inspection requirements differ between insurers and between policies, and only your own insurer can tell you what your coverage requires. Provincial health coverage rules, cross border tax rules, municipal vacancy or unoccupied property requirements, short term rental regulations and residential tenancy law vary by jurisdiction and change over time. Confirm coverage with your insurer, health coverage requirements with ServiceOntario, tax questions with a qualified cross border accountant, tenancy questions with a lawyer, and municipal requirements with your municipality before acting on anything described here.