Contents insurance question

Onawingandaprayer

I have no qualms about probate. It's proving long-winded because the son of the late owner lives in Australia.

davidmcn

Onawingandaprayer wrote: »

It's proving long-winded because the son of the late owner lives in Australia.

Is this much of an excuse these days? They have phones and the internet in Australia...

Not sure whether they can legitimately rent the place to you without probate.

G_M

You can certainly rent the place from them if they grant you a tenancy.

Though they would be mad to do so, and no solicitor would approve of them doing so. Just two examples:

* suppose you changed your mind and refused to Exchange? They would be stuck with you as a tenant for a minimum of 6 months, and would be unable to sell to anyone else
* they (the Executers of the Estate) would become landlords. They'd have to comply with 253 different laws and regulations as landlords

Of course, this would be their problem, not yours, but though they may initially offer this option, I suspect as soon as they tell their solicitor, the option will be withdrawn.

Miss_Samantha

There is no issue with insuring your belongings when you do not own the property.

Issues could be: Length of time property is left unoccupied, third parties having access to it. These should be detailed in your policy, which you should carefully read.
It would be best to explicitly tell your circumstances to your insurer. They may then refuse to insure, but at least you will be in no doubt as to the cover should something happen.

The arrangement as described (which should be in writing) is not a tenancy, and not a residential occupation. It is essentially a licence to use the premises as storage.
Thus, there would be no issue with eviction or (probably) many of the obligations of a residential landlord. on the other hand there would be no security of tenure.

G_M

Miss_Samantha wrote: »

The arrangement as described (which should be in writing) is not a tenancy, and not a residential occupation. It is essentially a licence to use the premises as storage.
Thus, there would be no issue with eviction or (probably) many of the obligations of a residential landlord. on the other hand there would be no security of tenure.

If this is a response to my post above

You can certainly rent the place from them if they grant you a tenancy.

Though they would be mad to do so, and no solicitor would approve of them doing so. Just two examples:...

that post was a response to the OP asking:

Supposing we were renting the flat on a short term rental, which the owners have also offered to us an option (we think they feel guilty because probate is taking so long). Would this make a difference?

However as a response to the original query (storage only) you are absolutely right.

Onawingandaprayer

Follow-up:
In spite of wise counsel that this was a bonkers idea, we did it, for just under 4 weeks, the last 2 of which we moved in too.

Thankfully all worked perfectly and we finally completed yesterday. A big risk, we know, but it must have saved us some £1500+ and was a superb gesture by the vendors. (Neither set of solicitors knew, of course, as they'd have had conniptions!)

G_M

Glad it worked out for you.

And lucky you didn't need to make a claim. That would have been the point at which the insurer would have turned nasty (which kind of defeats the purpose of insurance).

Onawingandaprayer

G_M wrote: »

Glad it worked out for you.

And lucky you didn't need to make a claim. That would have been the point at which the insurer would have turned nasty (which kind of defeats the purpose of insurance).

Spent first week or so in a state of High Anxiety but then relaxed into it, a pretty bizarre situation.