Insurance Indemnity Policies - Are they Really Necessary?

EssexHebridean

@tbg01 I think the OP is referring to the fact that when the buyer’s solicitor raised an enquiry relating to planning permission requirements for the garage - probably saying that if the correct permissions could not be proved to have been obtained, they would require an indemnity policy to cover, they clarified that no planning permission was required, and when their solicitor conveyed this information back to the buyer’s solicitor, unsurprisingly the requirement for an indemnity policy went away. Completely standard, and not really related to the situation at hand here which as you say relates to their not having complied with the covenant. 

Leodogger

EssexHebridean said:

I'm not a solicitor. I do know though that you will have been provided with a copy of the title when you purchased, and asked for any comments or questions you had on that. You will also have been sent a copy of the title when it was registered into your name - and that is the document you should have checked prior to just going ahead with the garage.
As the owner of a freehold property it is not reasonable to assume you can do whatever you like with the property and the land it stands on - the world just doesn't work that way. 
Plenty of people who are not solicitors understand the need to consult the title documents before proceeding to build on the property - that doesn't require qualifications, just a small amount of knowledge.
Asking your own family who may also not have that knowledge is not really a sound way of working out what your obligations may be. 
If you have never been provided with copies of the title and asked for your comments thereon in 6 conveyancing transactions then that would be incredibly surprising. That you might have instructed one incompetent solicitor is possible, the idea that that you have apparently managed to instruct multiple incompetent solicitors is frankly astonishing. (Or would be if it were in fact the case - I suspect it is not!)  On each occasion when I have purchased a property, a copy of the title, along with information forms, searches etc was provided by my solicitor and we were asked to check these carefully and get back to them with any queries we might have relating to that. We did indeed check them, but many people do not - which can be to their detriment down the line! 

I'm afraid you didn't really support anything - or at least, not what you think you did. Your solicitor would have been asking you about planning permission because they had an enquiry from the other side relating to this. Solicitors are not experts in planning requirements - and so will have been simply passing on your answer on that to the buyer's solicitor. when your answer was receive by the other side they (or their lenders)  will have withdrawn the requirement for indemnity cover relating to that aspect. 

Congratulations on your impending move. It sounds like it is a little too late now to suggest that you go back over the documentation sent to you by your solicitor and ensure that you have read and understand it all. I would strongly suggest that assuming you have a new home you are moving to, you do check the title to that properly when you get it in order to fully understand what you can, and cannot, do with the place. It might save you a couple of hundred pounds for an indemnity policy along the line, after all. 

Luckily they don't have indemnity policies in Spain, as indeed they do not carry out searches either (no mine shafts etc.), in fact it is a very simple process.   The only thing we were advised to check in the sale contract was that any reformation work was done legally and registered with the local Notary office as many add upper floors and either forget or refuse to pay the Notary to get them registered.   You can still buy it without the registration but the cost of adding it to the deeds then obviously falls to the new owner.   There is nowhere near the amount of checks carried out on Spanish properties like electrical checks or written confirmation about what people are or are not leaving in the property.  Mostly because old Spanish properties are notorious for not having the most up to date modern wiring anyway and new owners expect to get it updated when they move in, you buy the property as it stands usually after negotiating a reduced price to reflect the amount of work that will need doing when you move in.  Most of the checking  is done by word of mouth through the owner and the estate agent, but I have made certain that the property we are buying is legally registered (as some are not in Spain) and that the upper floor which was added has been legally notarised and added to the deeds !😉

Thanks for your advice!

Ksw3

Our title documents for our 1930s house says no outbuildings, garages, sheds etc without consent. 

I was most amused to find out I am also unable to keep chickens, the solicitor didn't inform me of any of this. She requested I read the title documents which I did and now I know.