Legal expenses cover for upcoming house extension work

aaj123

I have a major house extension work that is commencing next week (contract value around £140K). The builder seems competent and his company has all the required insurances 1) Public Liability 2) Employers Liability 3) Contracts insurance.

So I think these should cover any scenario of the building work damaging my existing structure or accidentally damaging either my or my neighbour's property.

The only risk I can think of is of running into some contractual dispute with the builder and for this I was considering taking legal expenses cover. However, almost every bog standard legal expenses cover seems to exclude disputes arising out of structural changes and also exclude disputes arising out of incidents happening in the first 60 days after the policy is taken out.

After a lot of searching, I finally found what looks like a specialist policy to cover the scenario I wanted.

http://www.protekselfbuild.co.uk/legal-expenses/

Has anyone used them before? Any other suggestions come to mind?

The premium being quoted for legal expenses cover by this provider is around £30 for a single incident with legal expenses up to £25K.

Furts

You need to notify your household insurers of the work and there may be additional premiums and admin.

You need a contract in place like an appropriate JCT Contract. But this will be dependent on a specification, working drawings and having your administration sorted.

Entirely your choice on taking out legal cover. This is a reflection on the crazy, dumbed down world we live in. Before work commences you are thinking about money going to the legal profession - this does not go down well with competent builders. The professional approach would be to ensure effective management, supervision, and inspection of the works so that the legal sharks never get a bite.


By all means have the policy as a back up - but I suspect it is riddled with let out clauses and of little use. but also ask yourself if you have got everything in order. It does sound like a last minute panic with working starting in one working days time.

Hopefully you alreaday have Full Plans Buildings Regulations in place and have held a pre -contract meeting with both your builder and the Building Inspector.