Tenant Insurance

jjlandlord

InsideInsurance wrote: »

As always from governmental advice..... it is likely to be an unfair term.... not a definitive statement that it is an unfair term.

Obviously the definitive answer for a given clause is to get a court judgement. Until then it's all likely vs. unlikely.
As a landlord I would not want to have 'likely' unfair terms in my contracts because it would unnecessarily add risk.

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Forcing the tenant to have liability insurance would be in their control and would be the landlords business.

And thus it must be specifically, and clearly specified that what the landlord requires is a liability insurance, not content, not building, because otherwise we're back to unfair term territory.

One solution for OP is to take out policy online, show certificate to agent, then cancel it within 14 days.

InsideInsurance

If you cancel the insurance you are then in breach of your contract. The clause is almost certainly to be define as holding tenant insurance for the duration of the tenancy not at a single point in the tenancy

jjlandlord

InsideInsurance wrote: »

If you cancel the insurance you are then in breach of your contract. The clause is almost certainly to be define as holding tenant insurance for the duration of the tenancy not at a single point in the tenancy

Of course.
But we all know that agents just do this to get commissions from their preferred supplier.

The landlord is already most likely holding a security deposit.
Unless he suspects the tenant is a nut case bound on destroying the property (in which case he should not let to him) such insurance has a very low level of usefulness in practice.

ashleypride

InsideInsurance wrote: »

If you cancel the insurance you are then in breach of your contract.
The clause is almost certainly to be define as holding tenant insurance for the duration of the tenancy not at a single point in the tenancy

Who cares? Once you have possession of the property, what can the agent, landlord do about it? What kind of damages would a judge award for this so called breach?

InsideInsurance

Suspect the bigger concern would be terminating the tenancy for breach of contract.

If they wanted damages then they would be the lost rent whilst finding a new tenant and the estate agents' fees for doing so. So it would stem from the generic breach of contract rather than the explicit issue at hand.

ashleypride

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Suspect the bigger concern would be terminating the tenancy for breach of contract.

A landlord would be barking mad to go for possesion on these grounds.
A judge awarding possesion and making somebody lose their home because the agent requires insurance that is non of their business and get a kickback from, I would hope is, very very very unlikely.

jjlandlord

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Suspect the bigger concern would be terminating the tenancy for breach of contract.

If they wanted damages then they would be the lost rent whilst finding a new tenant and the estate agents' fees for doing so. So it would stem from the generic breach of contract rather than the explicit issue at hand.

If they were to find out, terminating tenancy would not be easy as it would have to go through court, which would be unlikely to grant it. Residential tenants have more protection than commercial ones, so going through all the hoops for such a minor breach is not even worth considering.

Also the breach is not causing LL any immediate loss so I doubt that they would get any damage beyond forcing the tenant to get the insurance or pay landlord cost of doing so.

moksha_2

This has been a really eye opening thread. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed.
The first quote, for just contents, from the agent was in excess of £200, our online search reduced it to around £85! My son took our quote back to the agent who squirmed a bit, reviewed his quote and managed to get the price down to £117. I was incredulous that he'd suggested including legal cover for contents insurance but as this is my sons first policy he didnt think to question it at the time.
If there was ever a case for shopping around you have all helped to prove it.