The house should hold,
whether you are in it or not.

What stewardship means here

Honey limestone wants to breathe. Thatch wants a specialist, not a general builder with a ladder. An Aga wants a service, not a shrug. Oil wants measuring before Christmas. Private drainage wants respect. These are not lifestyle notes. They are the difference between a house that lasts and a house that photographs well until it does not.

Janette’s management is built for owners who live between places: London and the wold, New York and Kingham, a shooting season and a school term. The house is walked. Heating is watched. Keys are controlled. Contractors are known, not Googled at midnight. You receive a picture of what happened, not a portal login and a prayer.

She has a background in residential lettings as well as commercial property. That matters when a cottage is occupied, when an inventory is more than a PDF, and when a deposit dispute is better avoided than won.

The weekly and the rare

Routine: heating checks, leak walks, gutter after storm, garden as the owner likes it (not as the contractor prefers), bins, post, alarm, meter readings, fire and CO, water features that ice, guest rooms kept as if you might arrive unannounced.

Seasonal: thatch and stone inspections, chimney, oil and biomass, septic and treatment plants, listed joinery, moth in the wool, the lawn after a wet June, the drive after a coach has used it as a turning circle. Winterisation for houses that sleep. Spring opening for houses that wake.

Exceptional: a burst, a death of a tree on a listed wall, a film scout at the gate, a journalist, a delivery of wine that must go into a particular cellar, a dog-sitter who did not come. Janette is the person the house already knows.

People, not platforms

The Cotswolds still runs on names. The roofer who will attend a Grade II* roof. The electrician who understands old boards. The gardener who will not strim the fritillaries. The housekeeper who can lay a fire and not rearrange your books. Janette keeps that bench, briefs it, and pays it on time. Owners who try to assemble this from London usually assemble it twice.

Staff can be employed, introduced, or overseen. Security is proportionate: not a fortress, not a latch. For public lives, arrivals and trades are scheduled so that the village is not given a running commentary.

Reporting is a letter, not a dashboard. Photographs when they help. Accounts that a family office can file. Nothing that requires you to download an app in an airport.

When the house earns its keep

Some owners let, some host friends, some do both. Management can sit underneath a short stay programme or a long let, with inventories, check-ins, and the standard of presentation that a Daylesford neighbour would not find embarrassing. Compliance, insurance, and the quiet politics of a village let are handled as part of the same care.

If you are buying, management can begin at exchange. Empty houses decay faster than occupied ones. A Cotswold winter does not wait for your interior designer.