Buying listed building insurance estimates

Monty_Mouse_2

A member of my family is looking to purchase a grade 2 listed building and I am trying to help pull together some estimates so we can estimate the long term running / maintenance costs.

I've been doing lots of research online and the one item I am am struggling to get any information on is likely costs for insurance. From what I have read the general advice is to go with a specialist insurer. Unlike modern builds, the rebuild costs for listed building can be higher than the sale price as the property could need to be rebuilt using original materials and methods plus would need oversight from various historical bodies.

We've tried phoning a few companies for estimates but all want to send someone out to survey the property at a cost of around £400 and and won't provide any sort of ball park figure.

Has anyone owned a listed building and have any sense of how much insurance is likely to be? I appreciate each building is unique so it is difficult to compare but at the moment I am just trying to get a feel for what region it is likely to be in.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

G_M

Ask over on the insurance board?

Speak to an insurance broker?

ask the seller who he insures with and ask to see the renewal quote?

Monty_Mouse_2

Thanks for the response G_M. I have to admit I wasn't sure whether to post this here or on the insurance board.

We have spoken to several brokers already, but all want to do a site visit before they will provide figures and all charge for this.

We have asked the current owner through the estate agent but the agent isn't brilliant so still waiting for responses. I am also not convinced the owner has specialist insurance, they do seem a bit flippant about the whole grade 2 listed building thing.

Again from my reading, I understand that if you purchase a listed building and the previous owner has done unapproved work then the current owner will be liable for correcting it, we've already found some instances of this. From my research I have found there are indemnity policies out there that you can take out when you purchase a listed building to cover you for this sort of thing so we are trying to get ball park figures for that as well to add into our estimates for buying the property.

I don't know if we are being overly cautious with the grade 2 listing aspect. I suppose I just want to make sure that although the house looks affordable up front, there are not going to be unaffordable running / maintenance costs in the long term and we are making an informed decision with both head and hearts.

MrJB

Is the property Grade II or Grade II*. If it's the former it's one of several hundred thousand properties and I think nothing too unusual to worry about overly.

As you say the local authority can take enforcement action against the occupier at that time rather than the vendor. Worth also noting that enforcement for breach of listed buildings regulations is a criminal and not a civil matter.

camptownraces

Monty Mouse

Your relatives will have to get a proper structural survey as the first step in estimating maintenance costs, so get them to ask the surveyor to
(a) cost any recommended structural work which needs to be carried out soon, and any less urgent work also to be costed,
(b) give an opinion on the question of insuring the fabric of the place, including recommended insurers.

Imho, (a) is likely to be the more significant factor by far.

davidmcn

What results are you getting from the comparison sites? I didn't have a problem getting reasonable quotes when I was shopping around a couple of years ago (though didn't end up buying a listed building).

Monty_Mouse_2

Thanks MrJB. The property is grade II not grade II*.

I hadn't realised that enforcement for breach of listed buildings regulations is a criminal and not a civil matter, it is really useful to know.

I am thinking of recommending to my relative that if they do go ahead and make an offer then the offer price should be less the cost of any work needed to bring the property back within building regulations and to seriously investigate the indemnity policies out there that cover this sort of thing. Again at the moment I have no idea how much these policies costs so there needs to be a few more phone calls I think.

Monty_Mouse_2

Thanks camptownraces it is really good advice.

I'm recommending that my relative gets a full structural survey done by someone who is a specialist in listed buildings, may cost a bit more in the short term but it seems like a sensible investment to me based on the reading I have done.

However, I am not sure whether the insurers will take the structural survey in lieu of a site visit to provide the insurance quote. I am hoping that they will, otherwise shopping round for the best insurance is going to be impossible if they are going to charge us £400 a go to come round and quote. Has anyone been through this and know whether they will accept the structural survey results in place of a site visit?

The house looks in really good condition and very well maintained on the surface, but that obviously doesn't mean there aren't any problems hiding and waiting to be found.

RAS

Gobsmacked.

You should be able to get a quote relatively easily. if all else fails we found NFU not the cheapest but well accustomed to dealing with listed buildings, non-standard construction and strange subdivisions if needed.

Get a quote from them and assume that is the top end of the range you might have to pay.

DaftyDuck

I'm always a bit surprised that people shy away from buying a listed building, as I've always enjoyed owning them. My current home property isn't listed (despite being a Georgian Farmhouse), but the previous four were, two being Grade II*. I was lucky enough to grow up in a Grade I listed building with a separately-listed barn). I also let out two listed buildings, one a student let! I still sleep at night.

It doesn't necessarily add much to running costs, although it can. Day-to-day heating is likely to be higher, and improving the thermal efficiency can either be impossible, or expensive. I had a money-pit Medieval timber-framed ex-coaching inn, paper-thin walls, mullion windows, and no hope of improving them. Wind swept straight through it and, in storms, we just ditched the central heating as a dead loss, and used the fires instead. Well, it had worked that way for six hundred years. Structural improvement was only permitted under the guide of the Conservation Officer, no timbers over fifty years old could be removed or cut, the external appearance was unalterable, paint colour was restricted, and what could be done had to be done with oak beam structure, craftsmen employed, and bank managers bribed.

However, more traditional construction of brick or stone does not come with quite such high cost. You are still in the hands of a Conservation Officer, but the building costs aren't much higher than on any unlisted property (probably the same over time - you just generally think in terms of a job lasting fifty or a hundred+ years, not a decade or two). I think jobs like rewire, installing central heating, replacing bathrooms, they've cost in the region of 10% more maximum. Re-roofing, where traditional tiles are used, might cost 30% more, as breakage on removal is higher, and it's a slightly more skilled job. I have always avoided thatched buildings; great to look at one, not so great to insure (especially if you, or an adjoining neighbour, want a real fire!).

Extending can be an interesting challenge, again down to the whim of the Conservation Officer (CO), who tends to be a bigger obstacle than Planning. CO's do vary; I've had one (luckily in that timber-framed house) who, having more or less wept on seeing some of the timbers, spent much of the rest of his visit telling me what I could get away with, and how to shift original features along a bit so I could squeeze a doorway in. I had another (with a Butterfield house) who objected to everything, including a panelled fence that had been put up on the border by a neighbour! You can't tell before meeting them, and when you meet them, you've pretty much shown your hand. Although the cost of an extension can seem much higher (again, 30%), when you have a valuation done on the result, you'll find you've more than recouped your outlay.

Insurance never caused me a problem, and I never used a specialist broker. I've either used the NFU, Hiscox or Norwich Union (which has now become Aviva). They were always up to the job, and always quoted despite the listing. Key here is to have an "accurate" rebuild cost from the survey... which, even a specialist will admit, is an impossibility. Most decent surveyors who are local to the area will see enough of that type of property to give a reasonable figure... I now use NFU, and they have coped with all my odd demands without missing a beat.

With a modern, unlisted house the market valuation is often considerably more than the rebuild cost (as the plot makes a considerable part of the sum) while, with some older, or more specialised listed properties, the rebuild cost can be vastly more than the market valuation. So, make sure you give the right one of these two figures to the insurer. Some (Hiscox, John Lewis) give unlimited rebuild so, if you are in doubt, they are a good bet... but read their small print... It's worth pointing out that the insurance premium for the listed houses I have let is within a few quid of the premium for unlisted, so it's not going to be a deal-breaker for a house you love...

I have never had any insurer want to come out and view the properties, listed or otherwise. If you are buying, you WILL have a full structural survey; ensure this includes an estimate of rebuild cost.

Finally, listed houses are, in the main, an excellent investment. Buy a good one, and the house price will escalate far faster than unlisted. There may be a smaller pool of keen buyers, but the pool is growing, the number of really old houses goes down faster than it goes up, and people who want them tend to be wealthy! It's just luck my current house isn't listed; it certainly wouldn't have put me off if it had been.

Monty_Mouse_2

Thanks davidmcn. I did try several online sites and all the ones I tried said I would need to call them as it was a listed building but I didn't think about trying comparison sites so will give it go.