Informing lender and insurer about extension and renovation
Discussion
Happy Christmas everyone!
I'm embarking on a big extension and renovation project on my house. House size will nearly double. Obvs a lot of structural work is happening. I am intending on staying in the house while the work happens which may be very wishful thinking but we'll see
Virgin money is my mortgage lender. I've googled a fair bit and been through their FAQs and cannot see anything about me needing to inform them about my type of project. What to do?
Similarly, what is the safest thing to do wrt insurance? I'm with Aviva. What happens if the house falls down or something bad happens to the structure of the house while building? Who is liable? Builder? Insurance? Me personally?
Any advice gratefully received
I'm embarking on a big extension and renovation project on my house. House size will nearly double. Obvs a lot of structural work is happening. I am intending on staying in the house while the work happens which may be very wishful thinking but we'll see
Virgin money is my mortgage lender. I've googled a fair bit and been through their FAQs and cannot see anything about me needing to inform them about my type of project. What to do?
Similarly, what is the safest thing to do wrt insurance? I'm with Aviva. What happens if the house falls down or something bad happens to the structure of the house while building? Who is liable? Builder? Insurance? Me personally?
Any advice gratefully received
Merry Christmas.
As regards the builder they should obviously carry their own insurance for both property damage and liability insurance for any damage caused.
However there is probably a clause in your policy stating that any renovations etc are advised to them above a certain figure.
If there isnt and the building work is as large as you say then I would still advise you contacting them to tell them.
You don’t want an issue to then start having a debate as to who is liable / paying.
We have had large amounts of work done to ours ( sometimes feels continuous ) and have just advised insurers ( via my broker ) each time.
Each time they have said thanks for telling us.
No mortgage but equally if it were me and again based on the size of works I would be simply advising them.
They do after all own a piece of it.
Best of luck with all the work.
As regards the builder they should obviously carry their own insurance for both property damage and liability insurance for any damage caused.
However there is probably a clause in your policy stating that any renovations etc are advised to them above a certain figure.
If there isnt and the building work is as large as you say then I would still advise you contacting them to tell them.
You don’t want an issue to then start having a debate as to who is liable / paying.
We have had large amounts of work done to ours ( sometimes feels continuous ) and have just advised insurers ( via my broker ) each time.
Each time they have said thanks for telling us.
No mortgage but equally if it were me and again based on the size of works I would be simply advising them.
They do after all own a piece of it.
Best of luck with all the work.
I did very similar about 6 years ago. My approach:
Lender. So long as they get their monthly payments they'll never know. I was putting in roughly 50%of the starting value, from savings, so their position improved in terms of LTV and security. Probably not to the letter of the agreement but worked and I felt comfortable doing so.
Insurance. This I did properly. My standard insurance policy failed as the house was no longer habitable nor secure (nor at points structurally sound). Specialist insurer all the way and checked insurance for builder, architect and structural engineer carefully. (we moved out for a year while the work was being done and at times definitely breached the insurance conditions of the standard policy).
Lender. So long as they get their monthly payments they'll never know. I was putting in roughly 50%of the starting value, from savings, so their position improved in terms of LTV and security. Probably not to the letter of the agreement but worked and I felt comfortable doing so.
Insurance. This I did properly. My standard insurance policy failed as the house was no longer habitable nor secure (nor at points structurally sound). Specialist insurer all the way and checked insurance for builder, architect and structural engineer carefully. (we moved out for a year while the work was being done and at times definitely breached the insurance conditions of the standard policy).
Sleep, like the user name especially in terms of your first paragraph.
The lender won’t know you’re right unless there’s a major issue which is what Mr Juice is trying to balance in his mind.
At which point I have no idea what would happen - hence telling them before work commenced.
As regards insurance what happened when all work done ie did you then revert back to the original company policy or stay with the specialist having presumably cancelled the original ?
The lender won’t know you’re right unless there’s a major issue which is what Mr Juice is trying to balance in his mind.
At which point I have no idea what would happen - hence telling them before work commenced.
As regards insurance what happened when all work done ie did you then revert back to the original company policy or stay with the specialist having presumably cancelled the original ?
Hmm…we expected to be in our house throughout but the builder turfed us out for “a couple of weeks” that turned into 5 weeks. We did put quite a bit of stuff into storage and had that insured (although it ran out as the work dragged on and the insurer didn’t make any attempt to advise us or continue it).
I didn’t do anything about insurance of the house but don’t consider there was anything of particular value, although I suppose a fire could have been quite bad.
Ongoing, I had to tell the insurer as the policy is priced simply on number of bedrooms - we added a ground floor sunroom that could be used as a bedroom as we get older but my wife decided it should be a guest bedroom from the off so declaring it as such put the cost went up a bit. Left as sunroom the price wouldn’t have changed.
I didn’t do anything about insurance of the house but don’t consider there was anything of particular value, although I suppose a fire could have been quite bad.
Ongoing, I had to tell the insurer as the policy is priced simply on number of bedrooms - we added a ground floor sunroom that could be used as a bedroom as we get older but my wife decided it should be a guest bedroom from the off so declaring it as such put the cost went up a bit. Left as sunroom the price wouldn’t have changed.
We do quite a few policies for new purchases requiring renovation work, and it’s highly likely the Aviva policy will be invalid. Most of the time the specialist insurance wasn’t much more expensive to be honest but call Aviva first to see what their stance is.
Feel free to drop me a pm if you get stuck with a specialist insurer.
Feel free to drop me a pm if you get stuck with a specialist insurer.
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