Insuring a grade II listed, unoccupied home? Help please...

LRS

I would be grateful for any help and advice on insuring a grade II listed, unoccupied home of my late father.

Currently the contents and building insurance is being covered under the executers Block Policy until probate is completed.

I plan to rent to property once I officially own it, but there will most likely be a time gap between officially owning it and renting it out. During this time gap the property will be unoccupied and may still have a limited amount of low value contents items still in it, until these are moved into storage.

I have paid to keep the heating on low 12c, with the electric and water remaining active as well. The property is in a very low crime area and is also physically very secure by its layout and door and window lock hardware.

Any feedback on any good insurers that would be prepared to insure under these conditions would be very helpful.

Many thanks;

tattoed_bum

i may be wrong but i would imagine if you are planning to rent you will have to take out landlord insurance as at some point most rental properties will lie empty at some point so the landlords insurance should cover the building if empty,
just a question but as the premises are grade II listed are you sure it would be wise to rent it out as any damages done by the tenant would be very expensive to repair ,
ie if they accidentally knock a hole in the wall would this not take a specialist plasterer who deals with lime plaster to repair this

Oscar_The_Grouch

Hi there

You may want to combine your own home insurance with that for the rental property, then look at a high net worth insurer. The person above with the artwork on their posterior has hit on one of the major problems you will have with a grade II bujlding; repairs. High net worth insurers are used to this sort of thing because they deal with it on a daily basis. They are also used to dealing with people who own more than 1 property.

Insurers I would suggest (in alphabetical order rather than any preference):

Chubb
Hiscox
Sterling
Zurich

All can be accessed via a decent broker (such as Home & Legacy - but I only put their name down as an example, not as a recommendation).

Now I know what you are thinking; will I have to pay more for insuring with a high net worth insurer? The answer is probably not. The minimum premium for their policies tends to be higher than the standard market but by insuring the 2 properties together, you should get past that hurdle without a problem.

Finally, just to confirm, I don't work for any of the above companies.

LRS

Many thanks to all those above for your feedback.

The property itself is one of a dozen private terraced mews style 2, 3 bed individual homes that have been created by a restoration developer 15 years ago from a very old coaching in and later pub with function rooms. Parts of the property do date back to the 14th century, but other parts are only 15 years old. So it’s a real mixed bag of old and modern.

Probably around a quarter of these properties are rented out with most of the landlords using a very knowledgeable agent in the town. When I spoke to the agent, he strongly reassured me that they will only rent out these type of properties to professional or retired people, which has been stipulated by the owner directors of the developments management company. Based on this I have luckily not yet heard of any serious malicious or accidental damage issues experienced by any of the owners renting out their properties. The only issue that happened once was some trouble with a rental family with 2 teenage kids. This was soon addressed by the directors of the developments management company, resulting in the family being asked to move on, which they subsequently did.