Leaving an apartment vacant for a year.

If you are leaving it unoccupied you will need to change your insurance to reflect that....there is an extra loading.
 
The 'management fee' would imply that there may be some company or association in place that may be able to keep an eye on things while you are away (?).

You should also find out what the implication are for the insurance you hold if the property is 'vacant' for 12 months. (post crossed)
 
Look for a letting agent to rent it for you. If you have no bills to pay then the rent is a handy income and will keep the place ticking over. If you should have to return at a short notice you need only give 28 days notice to re-enter your property. It would seem the better option rather than leave it empty and hoping that it wont be broken into or have any leaks etc which would go unnoticed until too late.
 
There are plenty of commercial property management services available, I imagine they are mostly looking after rented properties but it shouldn't be much of a stretch for one of them to drop in once a month/week and check the place is OK? Do you not have a friend that would do this for a few quid?
 
You think that you have NO insurance at all on a property that you own?

He'd have the buildings insurance through the management company fee. So he should only be missing contents insurance.

I didn't bother with that myself until earlier this year. Not recommending others follow this practice though.
 
He'd have the buildings insurance through the management company fee. So he should only be missing contents insurance.

I didn't bother with that myself until earlier this year. Not recommending others follow this practice though.

Yes, this is the case. The value of contents is negligble.
 
He'd have the buildings insurance through the management company fee.
Not necessarily. I live in a privately managed development, pay an annual management and there is no block insurance and people are responsible for insuring their own properties themselves. Granted it is a townhouse rather than apartment development. In addition I would not necessarily assume that all was fine and dandy with the management company block insurance without double checking.
 
An Post do a postal redirection service which is pretty reliable. They send your post to another address nominated by you. Not sure how much they charge but I'd imagine it's fairly minimal.

I think the normal tenancy rules don't apply if the landlord / a member of the landlord's family need to move into the rented property (I'm sure I'll be corrected if wrong though!) so I wouldn't let the fact that you may need to come back sooner than planned put you off renting it - could be a handy earner, would take pressure off finding a job immediately abroad, and would solve the issues you higlighted in your original post.
 
I would contact your management agents and explain your situation and perhaps you could come to an arrangement where for a fee they could check on your apt once a month, turn on taps, remove junk mail, etc.