Insurance Question
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Discussion

tony wright

Original Poster:

1,042 posts

279 months

Saturday 16th November 2019
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Whilst listening to the local news it mentioned discovering a cannabis farm in a local house that caught fire and caused substantial damage. The fire damage was associated with the tampering of the electrics for the farming, so assume that’s what caused the fire. Likelihood is the criminals rented the house and now some unfortunate landlord will have a massive headache sorting it out. Had me wondering if his building insurance would cover it, if not what could he do to recover his costs?

Pica-Pica

16,588 posts

113 months

Saturday 16th November 2019
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If it was rented he could sue the tenants. However, they would have had to wire back to before the consumer unit surely? The MCBs should have tripped. Were the landlords wiring and consumer/suppliers units up to date?

clockworks

7,682 posts

174 months

Saturday 16th November 2019
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Probably wired between the main fuse and the meter, to avoid massive electricity bills. Very little protection.

tony wright

Original Poster:

1,042 posts

279 months

Saturday 16th November 2019
quotequote all
Sorry, I made the assumption it was rented as it was a news story. If it was rented I can’t imagine the landlord having any success suing the criminal tenant, probably didn’t give his real name.

I’ve also seen TV programmes where they show the wiring illegally linked straight into the outside mains, so wouldn’t imagine there would be any circuit breakers in place. My main thoughts were if the insurance would pay under those circumstances.

vonhosen

40,597 posts

246 months

Saturday 16th November 2019
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tony wright said:
Whilst listening to the local news it mentioned discovering a cannabis farm in a local house that caught fire and caused substantial damage. The fire damage was associated with the tampering of the electrics for the farming, so assume that’s what caused the fire. Likelihood is the criminals rented the house and now some unfortunate landlord will have a massive headache sorting it out. Had me wondering if his building insurance would cover it, if not what could he do to recover his costs?
Entirely depends on his policy, they aren't all the same.

guitarcarfanatic

1,987 posts

164 months

Saturday 16th November 2019
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Working in insurance claims, we get a few of these a year. Most decent landlord policies will cover this (even the cheap ones).

Insurancejon

4,096 posts

275 months

Saturday 16th November 2019
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guitarcarfanatic said:
Working in insurance claims, we get a few of these a year. Most decent landlord policies will cover this (even the cheap ones).
This^^^^^ most policies have 2 things these days.

1. A drugs cultivation extension
2. And a clause stating the landlord cannot be held responsible for the actions of his Tennant (unless complicit obviously)

tony wright

Original Poster:

1,042 posts

279 months

Sunday 17th November 2019
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Blinking heck they really do think of everythinglaugh

Chris32345

2,141 posts

91 months

Sunday 17th November 2019
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Landlord insurance would likely pay out for this

Chrisgr31

14,275 posts

284 months

Sunday 17th November 2019
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Insurancejon said:
This^^^^^ most policies have 2 things these days.

1. A drugs cultivation extension
2. And a clause stating the landlord cannot be held responsible for the actions of his Tennant (unless complicit obviously)
Of course this is why Landlords should inspect their properties fairly regularly, to try and reduce the chance of them being used for drugs cultivation. We did recently have a property being used as a brothel and when we looked at the photos from the inspections with hindsight it was obvious what the use was. However tenants such as these usually dont create a fuss and pay on time

98elise

32,580 posts

190 months

Sunday 17th November 2019
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vonhosen said:
tony wright said:
Whilst listening to the local news it mentioned discovering a cannabis farm in a local house that caught fire and caused substantial damage. The fire damage was associated with the tampering of the electrics for the farming, so assume that’s what caused the fire. Likelihood is the criminals rented the house and now some unfortunate landlord will have a massive headache sorting it out. Had me wondering if his building insurance would cover it, if not what could he do to recover his costs?
Entirely depends on his policy, they aren't all the same.
And if the landlord carried out any checks, and declared it correctly to the insurance company..

Rasta Pickles

80 posts

87 months

Sunday 17th November 2019
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Chrisgr31 said:
However tenants such as these usually dont create a fuss and pay on time
Yeah many years ago we had the misfortune to live next door to half a dozen Polish youngsters; they worked in the restaurant business so came home late and immediately started blasting out loud music in the small hours.

Environmental health weren't interested ("ah, if they're Polish we don't want to be accused of being xenophobic" was the exact phrase used) and their best suggestion was to talk to the landlord.

He said exactly what you allure to; they pay their rent on time without fail, I'm not going to rock the boat.

The glorious irony about it was one night in the summer (with windows open) there was an almighty ear-piercing scream; not a bedroom antics scream, something really blood-curdling. The music immediately stopped and the next morning there was one empty house - they'd scarpered.

I'm still awaiting a corpse to be discovered under the floorboards in there......

True story :-(


anonymous-user

83 months

Sunday 17th November 2019
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I heard that the neighbours downwind of the fire were pretty laid back about it allsmile

Tim2k9

132 posts

108 months

Sunday 17th November 2019
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I’d say yes for Fire damage, as even the most basic house insurance covers some combination of FLEEA (fire, lightning, earthquake, explosion, aircraft). Although there may be an exclusion specific to illegal activities.

As for damage caused be a grow itself, then there are policies on the market that will offer cover against this but obviously they are more expensive.

Long time since I’ve dealt with landlord insurance though, very little I did at the time as well, so happy to be corrected.