I am looking for new quotes for Landolord house insurance for a terraced house I am letting and someone I had on the phone for a quote told me that since the house is on the first floor and there’s a second house in the same building on the floor below (it’s a row of terraced houses with one house on the ground floor and one right above it, on the 1st floor) my house should be insured in common with the owner of the house below. The justification seems to be that if for exemple there’s a fire below this would affect my house directly.
Is anyone aware of such law? (apparently it’s supposed to be quite recent)
Thanks
Who owns the freehold of the building? They’re the ones who should insure it and re-charge the costs to the leaseholders of the 2 flats.
Flats are normally insured by freeholder/managing agent but maisonettes are sometimes insured by individual leaseholder where there is no management company and the terms of the lease put the responsibility of insurance on the leaseholder. Different insurance providers will have
different policies on whether they offer insurance on an individual maisonette. I have cover with direct line which hasn’t had any issues.
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Thanks. Indeed I always called my property a maisonette but the insurance guy disputed the term. It is leasehold, it has a 900+ year old lease, but of course no management company and ever since I’ve owned it I have insured it separately. The issue arose because my bank increased the premium by nearly 20% this year (I never made any claims) so I started looking elsewhere. Perhaps I’ll try Directline thanks; in any case I am beginning to see that the price increase this year seems to be normal and my bank has competitive prices after all.
Thanks Richard for mentioning direct line: I just got a quote online; it should save me roughly 100£ for the cover for my 2 properties, compared to Aviva through HSBC.
Cheers 
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