Blackmailing ex partner wants my house or else

Mojisola

breaking_free wrote: »

I hesitate to inform my Irish insurance company that 'My ex might deliberately damage the property'. I doubt it is covered for intentional damage (haven't checked the policy yet but will do).

Why not? If an arsonist burnt my house down, I'd expect the insurance company to pay up!

(Unless I'd paid him to do it!)

breaking_free

LilElvis wrote: »

When you put the house on the market instruct the estate agent not to put a "For Sale" sign outside - if it's location is isolated then a sign is unlikely to attract interested buyers anyway. Also tell them not to advertise the sale in the local newspapers. Unless your ex likes to visit estate agents for fun he would therefore be unlikely to find out that the house is for sale.

Brilliant advice and I will absolutely do just this. Thank you.

theoretica

Do check your insurance carefully. Especially for any clause about the house not being covered if it is uninhabited for longer than a certain period.

breaking_free

theoretica wrote: »

Do check your insurance carefully. Especially for any clause about the house not being covered if it is uninhabited for longer than a certain period.

No worries there. I am going to let the insurers know tomorrow that the house will be unoccupied as of X date.

Savvy_Sue

breaking_free wrote: »

No worries there. I am going to let the insurers know tomorrow that the house will be unoccupied as of X date.

There will be clauses about what you have to do while it is unoccupied: turning the utilities off at the mains is a favourite one; inspecting it at least weekly is a common sense one.

If you've got a local friend who could do these checks for you, that's fine, as long as you can trust them not to tell the ex, or any friends of the ex.

paddy's_mum

If you paid them to do so, would the current tenants remain in the house until it is very quietly sold?

breaking_free

It's an interesting idea but my estate agent already told me that prospective buyers don't like to see tenants in-situ and it is much easier to sell a vacant property. I'm going to follow his advice.

I've emailed the insurance company this morning to tell them when the property will be vacant and I'm going to tell my estate agent later today not to put a For Sale sign outside.

It will be such a relief if I can sell up in the next few months: one less thing the parasitic ex husband can hound me about.

Mojisola

breaking_free wrote: »

I've emailed the insurance company this morning to tell them when the property will be vacant and I'm going to tell my estate agent later today not to put a For Sale sign outside.

Do check that they haven't put up a board - EAs don't have the best reputation for following instructions.