Flat in block without factor fee/buildings insurance?

Pmarmalade

I'm looking to purchase a flat in a block of flats. All the flats I've viewed so far have a factor fee which includes buildings insurance and I presume this covers common areas.

Last night I viewed a flat I really like, however there's no factor fee or shared buildings insurance. They said when roofwork needed done recently everyone just chipped in and split the cost.

However more serious, unexpected work concerns me with this system. Can anyone advise?

tim123456789

Nope, only you can decide

OT1H, not having a factor involved will mean that the day to day running costs are (much) lower

OTOH not having a factor involved will mean that organising major work is a right PITA.

Only you can decide which you prefer.

sirmosh

I've got a feeling any lender would want buildings insurance surely? Can you even insure single flats in a shared building? What if a few of the owners had no insurance and the whole building burns down, how will the cost to rebuild be covered?

Pmarmalade

sirmosh wrote: »

I've got a feeling any lender would want buildings insurance surely? Can you even insure single flats in a shared building? What if a few of the owners had no insurance and the whole building burns down, how will the cost to rebuild be covered?

Yeah, this is my confusion

The current owners do have buildings insurance on their flat, which I guess makes sense, but it's a top floor flat and without a common agreement in place I would have thought the other owners could just turn round and say the roof has nothing to do with them :undecided

retro.kid

sirmosh wrote: »

I've got a feeling any lender would want buildings insurance surely? Can you even insure single flats in a shared building? What if a few of the owners had no insurance and the whole building burns down, how will the cost to rebuild be covered?

I recently had this same problem. Block of six - three high. Building insurance paid via factors. Contents insurance arranged individually.

One day the factor decided they were not offering building insurance any more. Their reason being too many people not paying. So at the end of the policy, all tenants and home owners had to take their own building insurance out.

I argued with them - how does that work if say the roof or communal areas are damaged. A policy on my flat would only cover my flat - nothing else. Their answer - if anything happened, it would need to be paid for at the time (split 6 ways).

My current contents insurer would not insure me for buildings as they couldn't insure just my part of the building when the rest of the building could be potentially un-insured.

Same response from many insurers.

Only policy i could get was from RBS Elite. They covered me, but at an expense.

I continued to argue with the factors about this - not only about the communal areas, but how could they be sure that all the flats in the block could be insured. They couldn't and never could provide an answer.

This was one of the reasons i decided enough was enough, and get out while i could.

Living with the in-laws now, but after my experiences with factors, it's made me certain that i will never live in another block of flats ever again. Next time i buy a property, i want my own walls, my own roof and my own garden - with no input from anyone else.

Hope this helps.

Pmarmalade

Thanks for the detailed response, retro.kid! :j

Came across this old thread related specifically to Glasgow tenements too!

ACG

I dont think you will get a Mortgage on this. There has to be a management company in place, even if its just the other tenants forming to be the company.