Both flats registered as Freehold and Leasehold - Building insurance?

canaldumidi

diamond_dave said:

...... Surely, if the room roof? blows off it is not the upstairs flat that makes the claim but the freeholder of the block. At present, the insured is listed as two properties.Really strange.How do large block of flats sort out the problem? Thanks.

It depends entirely on what the lease says! As advised: read the lease(s)!

By far the best solution (and most common) is for the leases to say the freeholder arranges the insurance for the building as a whole, and the cost is passed on to each leaseholder (or flat owner if, for example one flat owner has no lease but owns the freehold).

But not always.

The trouble with separate insurance policies is that come a claim, the two insurers may have different opinions about the extent of the cover, the way costs are split between them, or even whether cover for that event is included.

Crispytriple

At last - Sorted - Discovered my neighbour (below my flat) and I both own the lease jointly and we found a building insurance broker (greenfieldinsurance.co.uk) that provides building insurance for either of us or as a joint policy no matter if we have tenants or not (clause in the policy). We opted for the following as it was cheaper - One Policy covering both Flats in both names - I paid the full premium annual (which avoids the ridiculous monthly direct debit fees). My neighbour has set up a monthly payment scheme to repay me. Hooray. 

Sandtree

diamond_dave said:

I am in exactly the same situation with my fil being the freeholder and living in the top flat whilst I own the gf one renting it out. Trying to get insurance for this block is difficult(?) as many companies insure both flats separately. Surely, if the room blows off it is not the upstairs flat that makes the claim but the freeholder of the block. At present, the insured is listed as two properties.Really strange.How do large block of flats sort out the problem? Thanks.

Think you are looking at the wrong product... you generally want Block Insurance (abridged name for block of flats insurance) which is a type of commercial insurance sold exclusively via brokers and other intermediaries. 

In Scotland where leasehold has never existed and not every block has a factoring company then people do buy individual policies and it can lead to exceptionally long claims processes when it turns out some of the tenants are uninsured, the insurers arguing how costs should be split for things like roof damage, how to factor in things like a storm that meets some of the insurers T&Cs definition but not others etc etc. 

Large blocks of flats tend to have commercial owners who are experienced at buying Block Insurance so don't run into any problems.

eddddy

Crispytriple said:

Discovered my neighbour (below my flat) and I both own the lease jointly...

• It's very unlikely that you jointly own a lease. (Unless it is some kind of headlease, but that doesn't match-up with what you said in your first post.)

• It's very possible that you jointly own a freehold.

• And it's very likely that you each own your own individual lease.

Hopefully, even if you mis-described the set-up to the insurance broker, they worked out what you meant and arranged the correct insurance.