Flats Insurance

Single flat and blocks of flats insurance 

We can provide insurance cover for all types of flats.              Whether it’s a single property, a portfolio, a converted flat or a purpose-built block of flats.            We can also accommodate properties that include a commercial element - for example, a shop with flats above.  Our experience of providing property-owners’ insurance is that in any one building you are likely to have a mixture of tenants who may be professionals, students, DSS referrals or simply owneroccupier leaseholders. We can quote for all of these.  

As well as buildings cover, we can also arrange insurance for: 

• landlords’ contents • liability  • loss of rental income • directors and officers etc.

Many people approach us for individual flat insurance without realising that their property may already be covered under a block policy; so if you are considering asking us for a quotation for an individual flat in a block, (which we can do, subject to certain provisions)  you should  check beforehand  that cover has not already been arranged for you through the freeholder.         If you are buying a flat for the first time and

are confused about your rights and obligations, your Solicitor or Legal Adviser should be able to establish which insurance arrangements are in place, or what will need to be arranged.       We hope this guide will help you better understand the legal nature of your ownership.   Before reading on it is pertinent to point

out that if you want to buy a flat in a block in England or Wales,  you are pretty much stuck with a lease;

you  may be lucky  and be able to  buy one that  also includes a share of the freehold,   or your flat may

even be offered to you on a  commonhold basis,  an arrangement that is becoming more popular, and is

seen as the eventual replacement system to leasehold.     You can obtain the leasehold of a flat in pretty

much any type of building.      What you’ll be obtaining is a portion of the building and the right to occupy

that portion of the building for a set period of time.          This period of time is called the lease, and new leases are issued usually for 99 or 125 years;  occasionally you will be offered a 999 lease or one that is

’ in perpetuity ‘.   When you are buying a flat freehold, the term of the lease will be specified, and unless

the property is brand new or in a  newly converted building,  the lease will usually have run down a little.

You could think of a lease as a long tenancy agreement except that during the period you are free to sell the lease to someone else.             As property prices generally increase, so will the value of your lease, although its value can decrease the closer to the end of the lease you get.         If a lease is not renewed or extended, then at the end of the term, it returns to the freeholder.    Your ownership of the flat relates to everything within the walls that encompasses your portion of the building.      This includes the flooring 

and the plaster work and any fixtures & fittings.          Ownership does not include the bricks & mortar or the foundations or the land on which the property stands; this will all be owned by the freeholder.      The freeholder  is responsible for the upkeep of the building, but beware, as you will be partly responsible for paying for the upkeep. 

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01983 867269 

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