Landlord's contents insurance

I have contents belonging to myself as Landlord locked away in a garage and room in the property. The tenant does not have access to it. Can any one recommend an insurance company who will cover this. Its proving to be an unusual request which I cannot understand.

if you are not living there then this is a big risk to insure against

Maybe you need to look into separate storage facilities.
You might be able to off set any costs by charging more rent for use by your tenant of the room and garage you are currently using. This is something the tenant would need to agree to though since their current tenancy presumably excludes the use of these areas.

You could also take out a contents insurance policy, but there may be a minimum level of insurance cover so you need to decide if it is worth the cost over the period you anticipate keeping the stuff and if you would miss it if it all went up in smoke. If you won’t miss it, don’t insure. If you will miss it, decide on saving to replace it or insure it.

Hi Susan, may I ask how you resolved this in the end? Now I’m in a very similar scenario. I would like to keep one room in the property as a storage room of my personal stuff and just find it very hard to obtain a landlord insurance if I choose to do so :frowning:

If you retain a habitable room for yourself in the property, the Council Tax liability changes and you will become responsible for paying the CT. As above, find other storage.

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Hi David! Thank you for the reply. I actually called my local council earlier and they said the council tax will still be paid by the tenant, even if I keep a room for storage of my personal stuff. But I have decided to move out of my things anyway… I guess it really depends on the council in the end!

I’m afraid they gave you the wrong advice. It would be defined as a Council Tax HMO, (which has a different definition to a housing act HMO). With CT HMO’s the person liable for the CT is the landlord, regardless of whether the tenant actually pays it. The key issue is that if they stop paying it, (or never start) then its you the Council would pursue, despite their advice to you. See Goremsandu v London Borough of Harrow.

Thank you for this David. I think I’ll just remove my stuff to make things easier for myself lol