Owning your own home

How to handle building and contents insurance during a house move? We've only ever previously bought a leasehold flat where the leaseholder sorts the building insurance, so I've never really thought about this before.

We're moving from a rental house (where the landlord insures the property and we insure the contents) to a mortgaged house (where we obviously need to cover both).

I've been told that I will need to insure the building from the exchange date onward, and that the solicitor will want to see proof of insurance.

I also want to make sure my contents are insured with no lapse in coverage.

Current insurer won't cover the new house as a combined buildings and contents policy - I'm not sure why.

I think my best option is to take out a combined contents and building insurance policy on the house we're buying, starting on exchange date. Then, once we move our contents out of the rental house, call up the insurer and ask to cancel the contents policy.

Anyone spot any gaps in my logic, or other options that might work better?

Think M&S covered us between moves and are fairly accommodating for bike insurance, maybe get a quote from them?

I recently did this, and I took out a policy with whoever was cheapest and then cancelled it as I was within the cooling down period.

Then I adjusted my contents cover with Pedal Cover and introduced buildings cover to it. IIRC it turned out they could have done a thing to cover me between exchange and completion anyway, so it might be worth asking around

Just spoke to current insurer, and they'll move the cover over on completion date and charge me just over £100 extra for the remaining period until the end of January.

Unfortunately I can't do the take out policy and then cancel within cooling off as we're planning to exchange around 6 weeks before completion, as we'll need to give notice on our rental, and don't want to do that before we've got everything locked down.

Gonna explore how much of a refund they'd give if I asked them to cancel the policy now.

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/65823477/

Nestled in the heart of SW1, Eccleston Square is home to a remarkable offering - a spacious 768 square feet basement flat, enriched by the intrigue of a short 28-year lease.

In summary, this basement flat, boasting a 28-year lease...

Boasting?

And also nearly 6 grand a year service charge on that?!?

There's a tennis court?

The garden looks a lot bigger in the pictures than it does on the floor plan.

Not as intriguing as the pipework in the bathroom.

With flats/houses in those squares you generally get access to the private garden in the square. The £6k service charge will include the gardening and tennis court upkeep.

"I think my best option is to take out a combined contents and building insurance policy on the house we're buying, starting on exchange date. Then, once we move our contents out of the rental house, call up the insurer and ask to cancel the contents policy."

Yes, this is what we did.

soaring ceilings

Hopefully sold my mothers house, accepted offer this morning so the fun now starts. One would expect the sale of an empty house to a first time buyer to not be too traumatic but who knows.
Took 10% hit on first listing price but as my parents only paid £6.4k for it my mother should turn a profit on it and pay for her care home for the rest of her life.

https://search.savills.com/property-detail/gbglrsgls230231

Log pile and sauna, what more do you need?

My self employment to work out and a visa?

Ok maybe my marriage would not make it all the way up there.

A helicopter to get anywhere?

Its just off a B road, hardly the middle of nowhere!

A single track Scottish B road. I did a Scout camp at Lochgoilhead when I was a kid. We lived 10 miles away as the crow flies, it took us almost 2 hours to get there.

I did a Scout camp there too, my main memory is a load of 'friendly' local kids starting a fight with us, I was not a fighter, so ran off with one of their bikes in the chaos and lobbed it in the Loch.

House is incredible, midges tho

‘Property porn’ estate agent The Modern House cuts staff amid downturn

is £144 expensive or about right for a gas safety check and boiler service? (1 boiler + 1 gas hob)

It's about what I paid 9 months ago.