Home buyers protection/ insurance

john26

I've heard of this and having had two sales fall through and losing money on each I thought I'd get some cover this time.

Having looked to take it out now we've just had our offer accepted, I can't find any large companies, only small unknowns, of which there are a few. Also, a few search results for Legal and General but looking at those they're for agents to sell on to a home buyer, I can't go to them direct!

Does anyone know of a provider/product I can buy myself to cover up to £500 surveyors fees, £800 conveyancing fees and 150 for lenders fees.

buglawton

2 sales or 2 purchases fell through? Buyer pays conveyancing fees not seller, surely?

tasty_snacks

The wife and I suffered a £3k loss on an offer after the vendor pulled out last knockings, so I've also been looking into this.

Legal & General offered Home Buyers Protection a while back, but seem to have pulled it.

There only appears to be one product (albeit marketed through different sites) on the market for just shy of £80, which covers up to £1500 of loss, broken down as follows;

• £750 towards conveyance fees
• £500 towards survey/valuation fees
• £250 towards mortgage/lenders fees

This covers the following situations;

• The property you're buying is withdrawn from sale.
• You are "gazumped" by an offer of £1,000 or more.
• You have to withdraw from the property purchase due to an unforeseen illness or death of a buying partner.
• You have to withdraw from the property purchase due to redundancy or notice of employment relocation.
• The property is damaged before the sale is complete and the rectification work exceeds 10% of the original agreed purchase price.
• The surveyor's valuation is less than 90% of the sale agreed price.

I'm likely to buy one, but many web pages are aimed at the solicitor and/or mortgage broker, so I guess they get a kick back?

theEnd

tasty_snacks wrote: »

on the market for just shy of £80, which covers up to £1500 of loss

Looks a good deal. Can't see how they can make money out of this. Surely loads of sales fall through for those reasons?

tasty_snacks

theEnd wrote: »

Looks a good deal. Can't see how they can make money out of this. Surely loads of sales fall through for those reasons?

Exactly.....


I've traced the arranger to Qdos Underwrting, although the policy documents do not mention an ultimate insurer.


http://www.qdosunderwriting.com/products/legal-expenses/home-purchasers-protection


The policy does not last more than 90 days according to the policy docs at the above site, however some of the Google search hits refer to 180 days. If the former, this may explain why the price is low - under the assumption that purchase terminations are correlated to length of sales process.


Also check the start date wording, which is quite tight around when the offer was accepted/ when your solicitor was instructed, whichever is sooner.

buglawton

Is that page aimed only at agents? As I see this:

Trading options include: stand alone referral, delegated authority scheme, Qdos-managed white labelled online retail facility

john26

Thanks for all your replies guys, sorry I've not responded earlier.

Bug - We are the buyer, hence we lost conveyancing fees.

Tasty - I came up against the same difficulties of all the policies seeming to be aimed at brokers to offer to customers rather than me purchasing for myself. Even my broker who I consulted didn't seem clear on it and it turns out they offered it (London & Country) so we were covered anyway for no cost

So far, everything is going smoothly, hoping to complete soon. My only regret is paying out £650 for a surveyors report which doesn't tell me much I didn't already know from speaking to friends in the trade. Next time I think I'll skip this cost.

Annie1960

john26 wrote: »

So far, everything is going smoothly, hoping to complete soon. My only regret is paying out £650 for a surveyors report which doesn't tell me much I didn't already know from speaking to friends in the trade. Next time I think I'll skip this cost.

But perhaps the survey has put your mind at rest that you will not find anything nasty once you move in? Much worse to have omitted the survey, then later find subsidence, roof about to fall in or similar.

buglawton

A £600 survey is unlikely to reveal subsidence that was not already visible to the layman's eye. I've bought 2 houses in the past where the survey failed to mention structural faults which were in fact visible to anyone looking in the right direction. Caveat emptor always.