UKC

Hi all,

My home insurance is up for renewal. I'm currently paying around £45/month for building and contents, including three bikes, I was thinking it seemed a bit pricey so decided to have a look around.

I live in an upstairs flat in a two story building, which I bought a couple of years ago. External walls and roof are shared ownership with downstairs. Now I'd have thought that this was not that uncommon a setup, but speaking to various call centre monkeys, they couldn't seem to get their heads around the idea that there wasn't one person that solely owned the roof and walls so wouldn't insure me.

I'm currently with uinsure, which was set up by the mortgage adviser when I bought the place. Can anyone recommend an insurance company that would provide building and contents insurance for a setup where ownership of the building is shared with an external party? Or does £45/month sound reasonable?

We have a similar set up with our neighbour. The only way we managed it was to jointly take out buildings insurance with downstairs in our capacity as the freeholder (we used AA). Then to both separately take out contents insurance.

you're avin a larf (or words to that effect).

there are millions of flats up and down the country, and it's very dam normal that the owners are jointly responsible for the shared parts of the structure, e.g. roof.

I'd think that every buildings insurance provider knows this and can quote you insurance for your gaff (if they want to).

have a shop around, any insurer, comparison site etc. see what you find.

Thanks for the reply. I'm on good terms with the neighbours so could be worth a try.

You'd think so wouldn't you, but based on kestrelspl's reply, I'm not the only one finding this less than straightforward. 

I've only tried a few companies though, I was starting to lose the will to live after trying to explain this concept for the third time.

I'm not unbelieving to you or the kestrel's experience.

I'm still incredulous of the idea that everyone who owns a flat needs to get together with their neighbors to coordinate their insurance for their assets....

I have buildings insurance (from AXA at the moment) for top floor flat.

I'm thinking that it could be something to do with what your asking for in the insurance cover, but I'm just guessing and don't really want to get into the detail

Possibly, although it all seems pretty standard as far as I can tell.

Ill give AXA a try, cheers.

Something worth thinking about when insuring a flat, my daughter lives in an upstairs flat and when she made a claim after a storm to have the roof repaired her insurer would only pay for half the cost saying her downstairs neighbour was responsible for the other half.

they wouldn't pursue it for her and the neighbour said she had no insurance and refused to pay up.

my daughter was advised it wasn't worth pursuing in court due to costs and the likelihood of not being able to recover anything as the tenant didn't work and was on benefits.     

On what legal basis do you own it?  Leasehold?  Commonhold?  Share of freehold?

I would have thought your daughters beef would be with the owner, not the tenant, but hey what do I know, you have seen a solicitor.

This sounds physically similar to a "Tyneside Flat". Legal arrangements and insurance requirements thus;

https://www.watsonburton.com/lib/liDownload/1286/tyneside%20flats.pdf?CFID=...

I don't know whereabouts in the country you are, but £45 / mo sounds hugely expensive, and even if your property isn't part of a building as described in the link above, the arrangement does seem a bit odd. Basically one legal entity, whether a person or a company, will be legally responsible for the buildings, and therefore for insuring them; the  shared ownership thing seems strange, and I suspect in this situation both you and the other freeholder would be joint and severally liable, which can get messy. I'm on the side of the monkeys here; if you cant tell them who is responsible, they cant sell you a suitable policy. If in doubt, assume you are responsible for the whole building.

I'll repeat what's already been said; it's not the tennant's duty to pay (commercial lettings usually pass building maintenance onto the tennant - but I'v never heard of this for a domestic let.)

your daughter's claim is an open and shut case with the landowner; at least worth looking to the small claims court. (and don't ease up on chasing and haranguing the landlord; often if the letting is via an agent then this can make it easier in that they [I'll caveat this with sometimes] just pay and recoup from the letting fee; because they're not minded to be harassed by others for the sake of their client when they have nothing to gain themselves)

Sorry for the late reply, been busy over the weekend. 

I'm not quite sure actually. It's definitely not a leasehold. I'd not heard of a commonhold  but reading up on it, they sound pretty rare and doesn't sound like they apply to Scotland where I live. So I guess it must be some sort of shared freehold.

The land register says "with an equal pro indiviso right in common along with the proprietors of the ground floor dwellinghouse or flat..." the roof, walls etc. 

It's not a tyneside flat from my understanding of your link. 

Surely it must be a very common set up to have a building with two totally separate flats? 

We're with Pedalcover because they're sensible about insuring bikes as part of contents. While I don't understand the ins and outs of your situation, I've found their staff helpful and knowledgeable, would be worth giving them a call

Oh, you're in Scotland...in that case it will almost certainly be a tenement, which is incredibly common to the point of being the norm and I'm surprised any insurance company has an issue with it.

It is! There are thousands of the things here, and around the UK. If it is, as someone else suggested a tenement building, i'm surprised the insurance co were odd, as in scotland they are commonplac and would therefore have an established legal liability situation for building repairs (and hence insurance).  My knowledge would end at the border though, as I know property law is different in scotland.......

Would duplex be an appropriate description? I've seen insurers refer to 2 flats in one building this way before. If you find the right word that's in the drop down menu for type of property all will be well.

Suspect you've already done this but  have you tried a price comparison website? 

£45 a month seems a ripoff. I pay £200 /year for £1M rebuild and £200k contents.

I am assuming you property is held under English Law? Is your flat Leasehold or Freehold?

If Leasehold it shouldn't be a problem. The Freeholder pays for Buildings Insurance and recoups the cost of the Premiums from the Leaseholders. The Leaseholders are each responsible for their own contents insurance - this needn't be with the same company as the Freeholder's buildings insurance.

I live in exactly what you describe in a Leasehold flat and it's not a problem. I shop around every year for the best deal for the contents. The Freeholder insures the buildings and recoups the premium from us on a pro-rata basis which is described in the Lease in relation to the varying flat sizes.

If your flat is Freehold it's more of a problem and you may have to form a joint management company to insure the building separately, but still do your own contents insurance. Talk to an experienced broker if you're Freehold.