landroversforever Posted May 13 Share Posted May 13 Sorry for the OT nature of this, and not even remotely LR related unless we count parking the 90 on the front or in the garage when she's finished! Feel free to bin it fellow mods if it's too far off the beaten track. Has anyone here got any experience with getting house insurance for a property that is both unoccupied and being renovated by yourself? Sticking point seems to the fact that I'm not a qualified trades person, and work is either being done by me/family/friends. The irony of the number of bodges and terrible workmanship we've removed isn't lost on me either It's currently '4' blank walls upstairs and downstairs, no non structural internal walls left bar one, just finished putting down the new floor sheets upstairs on Friday having prepped all of the under floor wiring and plumbing with my BIL/best mate previously. I am waiting back on a call from AJG about the renewal after going round the houses with them but I'm really not hopeful at the mo. Renewal came through as needing some questions answered, told that the flooring being up constituted structural work and they couldn't offer cover. Got the flooring sorted only to then be told they still were not interested as we are doing the work ourselves and don't have any kind of liability stuff in place. BIL has gone down the route of reinstating his (business still 'open' but employed elsewhere) for now in the hope that will sort it. It is however, a bit of a worry as last years policy expired at midnight Saturday. A policy that didn't care that we put a 5m hole in the back of the house, it just had an endorsement on the policy for it whilst we were doing it. Anyone got any ideas? I seem to be up the proverbial creek unless I somehow miraculously qualify as a builder overnight or finish the renovations inside 24 hours - the latter I've not exactly got a great record for 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoSS Posted May 13 Share Posted May 13 There's a qualification to be a builder? lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landroversforever Posted May 13 Author Share Posted May 13 3 minutes ago, HoSS said: There's a qualification to be a builder? lol That's the joke of it! Even queried what they meant on one of the calls and they didn't have an answer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happyoldgit Posted May 13 Share Posted May 13 No problem with insuring this place in rural Norfolk via NFU while it was empty and being worked on by tradespeople and me. We obviously continued insuring our other property while we were still living there and after we had permanently moved into the new place, finally cancelling that after sale and completed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landroversforever Posted May 13 Author Share Posted May 13 Not tried NFU this time round.... well reminded Steve! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon_CSK Posted May 13 Share Posted May 13 2 hours ago, HoSS said: There's a qualification to be a builder? lol There are qualifications but they don't mean very much nor do they have much in the way of legal standing. Have been told many times that a builder is qualifed and have been in stiches at the quality of their work. I had one builder tell me that he was doing the work better than the structural engineer had designed. I got the structural engineer to look at it and his comment was "this guy is dangerous!!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy996 Posted May 13 Share Posted May 13 Try an old fashioned broker and explain the problem. Most of the pre-packaged stuff will be hopeless as it is sold on a "binder", which means the personal selling the policy has no discretion. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landroversforever Posted May 13 Author Share Posted May 13 I've certainly been looking more at the specialist end of the market. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muddy Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 I would try NFU they are normally very helpful/accomodating even if they cannot offer cover or are too dear. Why can't you just insure it normally? I can't imagine many people ring the insurance company when they have the builders round until the job is done and signed off by the building inspector if at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landroversforever Posted May 14 Author Share Posted May 14 42 minutes ago, muddy said: I would try NFU they are normally very helpful/accomodating even if they cannot offer cover or are too dear. Why can't you just insure it normally? I can't imagine many people ring the insurance company when they have the builders round until the job is done and signed off by the building inspector if at all. Most normal policies you have to be living there, with a maximum of 30 days away and occasionally some policies cover 60 days away. With a complete lack of kitchen/internal walls/bathroom etc that's a little tricky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Poore Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 Don't know how to help on the unoccupied front but do you need to declare that you're doing the work? I guess it depends on whether you're planning on keeping the house or selling shortly where you need paperwork etc. I don't know if they operate that far afield but it might be worth speaking to Old Oak Insurance Brokers in Carmarthen. They're currently who deal with my house insurance because it's 9 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and 6 doors on the ground floor so most won't touch it. I tried this year A Plan / Howdens as that's who the Defender is insured with and I have to say less than impressed quite the opposite of the 4x4 side of things. Initial girl I spoke to was okay but we needed a rebuild cost, well who the hell these days knows or is capable of rebuilding a Victorian mansion with 4ft thick walls... My experience is the builders are just about competent enough to build stuff that doesn't fall down after a year. She sent me through a quote tool to estimate rebuild cost (after asking how many bathrooms and bedrooms) to find that it only supports a maximum of 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms . Then got a phone call from their specialist in High Wycombe who'd looked at a Google Maps satellite and reckoned rebuild cost was anywhere from £2.5m to £5m... To provide me with extra peace of mind the insurers would conduct a desktop survey of the property to properly evaluate it. That did exactly the opposite, he kept reiterating the same point for 20 minutes and eventually I gave up trying to be polite and said, shut-up, listen, I've tried to be polite but you're obviously not listening - that doesn't inspire me with confidence so thank you for your time and goodbye. (edit) as an aside you can probably get a trade account registered at a local builders merchant just because you'll be putting a reasonably amount through them. Then that probably qualifies you as trade. . When I set up the account with a local firm they just wanted some other companies ideally where I had credit with to confirm I was good for paying. They never checked but meant I had a decent credit limit. After all they weren't stupid because they realised I was likely to be putting 10s of thousands at a minimum through their books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landroversforever Posted May 14 Author Share Posted May 14 Trouble I've got is they ask who's doing the the work and have they got liability stuff in place. Friend of mine went down the route of just having any old cheap high street/internet cover to appease the mortgage, but he was at least still living there for most of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Poore Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 Can you just take out a third party liability insurance for yourself? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miketomcat Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 I've always lived in mine, even if it was a camper in the garden. As Ed's just said take out a public liability policy to cover you working. Mike 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elbekko Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 2 hours ago, landroversforever said: Trouble I've got is they ask who's doing the the work and have they got liability stuff in place. Friend of mine went down the route of just having any old cheap high street/internet cover to appease the mortgage, but he was at least still living there for most of it. Can you cheaply set up a one-man company and put some liability insurance on that? Might come in handy for some other stuff as well, like selling more laser cut parts and such? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landroversforever Posted May 14 Author Share Posted May 14 NFU is a no due to being unoccupied (may have been able to offer cover if it was previously with them) Adrian Flux - No because of the boarded up section where we did the steelwork. Waiting to hear back from Towergate and Nova Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Poore Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 2 hours ago, elbekko said: Can you cheaply set up a one-man company and put some liability insurance on that? Might come in handy for some other stuff as well, like selling more laser cut parts and such? HMRC are clamping down on one man companies. Provided your company has multiple sources of income (e.g. Different products and customers) then you should be okay but if you only work for one person all the time or on one project they say you should be an employee not a seperate company. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landroversforever Posted May 14 Author Share Posted May 14 7 minutes ago, Ed Poore said: HMRC are clamping down on one man companies. Provided your company has multiple sources of income (e.g. Different products and customers) then you should be okay but if you only work for one person all the time or on one project they say you should be an employee not a seperate company. Yeah, loads of contractors at work had that issue.... contractors who 'could be let go at any minute' but some had been around 40 years Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elbekko Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 29 minutes ago, Ed Poore said: HMRC are clamping down on one man companies. Provided your company has multiple sources of income (e.g. Different products and customers) then you should be okay but if you only work for one person all the time or on one project they say you should be an employee not a seperate company. Well, he's also still an employee, so I don't see why that matters. Only having yourself as client might be a bit iffy, but as long as it results in you paying *more* taxes, nobody is going to care I would think. Additionally, at the risk of going way off topic, they've had similar rules over here for a while, and there are more criteria than that you have to fulfill. Basically boils down to one client is ok, as long as that client has no authority over you, as is the case with an employee contract. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happyoldgit Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 1 hour ago, landroversforever said: NFU is a no due to being unoccupied (may have been able to offer cover if it was previously with them) Adrian Flux - No because of the boarded up section where we did the steelwork. Waiting to hear back from Towergate and Nova Was the NFU advice from their national office or a local agent? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Poore Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 43 minutes ago, elbekko said: Well, he's also still an employee, so I don't see why that matters. Only having yourself as client might be a bit iffy, but as long as it results in you paying *more* taxes, nobody is going to care I would think. I think it does - companies here were quite often used to avoid paying tax. For example, if you earnt £100k then as a solitary person you'd be charged 40% income tax. If you set up a company to receive the funds then you could pay yourself a basic salary but then get dividends at the end of the year which I think are taxed at 8.25% (my naive understanding). I was asked a few years back to do some consultancy and as I was already paying 40% the idea was to have a company so if I wanted tools etc., I could buy them through that as I didn't actually need the extra cash. We ended up putting it into the family business which was electronics as since we owned it outright and controlled it all it wasn't worth setting up a new one. However our accountant at the time gave us the warnings above and he'd had a lot of their clients get a lot of pressure and investigations started because of only having one source of income to the company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landroversforever Posted May 14 Author Share Posted May 14 58 minutes ago, Happyoldgit said: Was the NFU advice from their national office or a local agent? Local agent. Reckon the national office is worth a shout? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happyoldgit Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 5 minutes ago, landroversforever said: Local agent. Reckon the national office is worth a shout? Can’t do any harm, try another agent too as I found they do vary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daan Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 21 hours ago, landroversforever said: Sorry for the OT nature of this, and not even remotely LR related unless we count parking the 90 on the front or in the garage when she's finished! Feel free to bin it fellow mods if it's too far off the beaten track. Has anyone here got any experience with getting house insurance for a property that is both unoccupied and being renovated by yourself? Sticking point seems to the fact that I'm not a qualified trades person, and work is either being done by me/family/friends. The irony of the number of bodges and terrible workmanship we've removed isn't lost on me either It's currently '4' blank walls upstairs and downstairs, no non structural internal walls left bar one, just finished putting down the new floor sheets upstairs on Friday having prepped all of the under floor wiring and plumbing with my BIL/best mate previously. I am waiting back on a call from AJG about the renewal after going round the houses with them but I'm really not hopeful at the mo. Renewal came through as needing some questions answered, told that the flooring being up constituted structural work and they couldn't offer cover. Got the flooring sorted only to then be told they still were not interested as we are doing the work ourselves and don't have any kind of liability stuff in place. BIL has gone down the route of reinstating his (business still 'open' but employed elsewhere) for now in the hope that will sort it. It is however, a bit of a worry as last years policy expired at midnight Saturday. A policy that didn't care that we put a 5m hole in the back of the house, it just had an endorsement on the policy for it whilst we were doing it. Anyone got any ideas? I seem to be up the proverbial creek unless I somehow miraculously qualify as a builder overnight or finish the renovations inside 24 hours - the latter I've not exactly got a great record for I don't really see the problem, you can insure it and don't mention the not living there bit and renovation bit. At some stage it is wise to update the insurance as the value of your house has increased. By now, the who did it bit does not matter, as they can see the job in front of them. I mean trying to insure something that you are going to do is just a waste of time. I suppose you have planning involved with this? Again, once done, you can show them planning drawings and they can go from there. You are too early with insuring basically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pat_pending Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 Try asking the question on the self build house forum. https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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