Question about buying a house and garage

Associate
Joined
27 Jan 2019
Posts
163
Hi all. I am buying a house. It has got a garage but it is under a coach house. I have posted in the covid thread some question but decided to open a new thread.
I would like to have some opinions and would love to hear some feedback either from personal experience or as an advice.

Because this is our first time buying a house we would like to ask for second opinion in here from those with more experience and see if it is in line we are thoughts as well. The bank has suggested us a life and ci cover and also an income protection cover.

1. The joint decreasing life and critical illness cover in order to protect the mortgage was offered.
I guess this is mandatory right? Now the question is it mandatory to do this with the lender? Or can we go and do with another provider that offers this - provided it is possible? In you opinion would it be better to do with the lender or another provider? In general do we get a better deal with the lender o provider? Also in terms of prices which one is more competitive?
2. We have been also recommended to do an income protection for me and my partner.
Question: I think the questions that I did above I guess is applied here.

I think the most important thing is to know if we should go with what the bank is offering or if we should seek another insurance company. We looked at aviva and for life and ci cover they charge roughly 80 pounds (-50 than what the bank is asking). We haven't simulated an income protection cover yet but I guess it will be lower in terms of monthly payments compared to what the bank is offering.

What did you guys do in your case? Any help is appreciated and some guidance just to have a feel and other opinions.

Now a separate question in regards to the coach house. We have to do an insurance for the building. Now since the garage is under a coach house how do we go about it? Whom is responsible for this since it is a leasehold type of thing? Moreover, what happens if something happens to the garage, say a leak coming from the house? or if there is a fire on the house?
Who is responsible for each part of the garage? We have one of the walls facing the garden. We have direct access to the garage via garden.

Thanks in advance.
 
Pet Northerner
Don
Joined
29 Jul 2006
Posts
8,023
Location
Newcastle, UK
In terms of insurance, you can get that from anyone.

In terms of the garage -best advice I can give you is to speak to your convencing solicitor. They will look at the pariculars of any lease hold and will explain who is bound by what.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
27 Jan 2019
Posts
163
In terms of insurance, you can get that from anyone.

In terms of the garage -best advice I can give you is to speak to your convencing solicitor. They will look at the pariculars of any lease hold and will explain who is bound by what.

Thanks. I will do this. Just thought about asking to have an idea and form some questions to ask him. I think that he is doing some queries to the sellers solicitor in regards to the garage not having been included in one document. But he didn't mention about explaining who is bound to what so I will probably do this, although he mentioned that the particularities are in the leasehold document which will be sent to us.

Thanks for your input.

Regarding the cover it is good to know that we can go to another company because we weren't sure about this.

Cheers.
 
Associate
Joined
19 May 2009
Posts
1,508
Location
Nottingham
I've done a couple of posts on this in the past as I have what I think is probably a fairly unique setup of life insurance covers that work well for me, and I went through a broker to set mine up. Dont just accept what your bank give you, do your own looking and feel free to use a broker. They milk it by gtting referral payments from the providers so you loose out on things like cashback etc, but I don't think I could ever have dreamed up the kind of policy I have without them. The short version is that it's made consideraly cheaper by having lots of individual policies doing lots of things, rather than one big policy. The long version is the below;

  • A joint level term life policy for myself and the wife covering the original mortgage amount. - We did look at decreasing, but the saving was something like £1.50 a month, and it seems silly to me. This guarentees the mortgage is paid should one of us die, but with each year that passes I have piece of mind that the survivor would be better off relative to whats left on the mortgage.
  • A single life + critical illness for myself - This is for a relatively low amount and is just to provide a cash boost in the event of me having a critical illness. Theres a reason this is low which will come to light lower down
  • A single life + critical illness for my wife - This is much higher, close to the joint life cover and again is really to cover for critical illnesses. Both of these have the benefit though that they top up the joint, and shoud one of us die, the mortgage is covered, and theres lots of living money for the suvivor.
  • Point four is where it gets complicated and all links to income protection insurance. In short, this is awesome. If you pull the policies for critical illness you will all see they have huge amounts of exclusions. It's not uncommon to find that things like cancer simply aren't cancerous enough for the policy and you get nothing until you die. Income protection cover is much better than this. You want to make sure any income protection cover has 3 options. An own occupation clause, index linked, and guranteed premiums. This means the income protection kicks in for any medical reason that prevents you from doing the job you had as the protection kicks in. Should you be a store manager, have some kind of debiliatating illness, you cant be forced to take a job as a shelf stacker for example. Index linked means your payments keep up with inflation, and guranteed premiums means your payments stay roughly the same (Bar the amount they go up again linked to indexation + a small amount, but in real terms this is only a small increase each year). If you get income protection with these options it's generally pretty awesome. I didnt have the redundancy cover on mine as it made it much more expensive, and mines designed to cover living costs in the vent of myself having a long term reason I can't work. I don't have this for my wife as shes not the main earner, and thats the reason my critical illness cover is lower than hers. If shes critically ill theres a big payout to cover, and I keep earning the money. If it's me, theres a medium payout, but I have a guranteed income until I'm 60 ish to live off on top of that. The bit the broker did I never dreamed off is split this into two policies. One is designed to kick in after 6 months, and only pays out about 30% of what I earn. This is because I get full sick pay for 6 months, then half for another 6 from work, so after month 6, when my pay drops to half, my income protection kicks in. I then have a second policy with a 12 month defferal period that kicks in for about 50% of what I earn, but the origional one keeps running as well. So after 12 months I'm at about 80% of my income until I can return to work, or I hit the policy age limit.

As you can see this is a pretty complex setup, and in total my wife and I have 5 policies split across two companies, but all in this only costs us about £65 a month, and wasn't much more than the kind of quotes banks were giving us for the usual silly massive life + critical illness cover they offer, but I felt this gives me much better cover. Mainly due to the fact the income protection insurance simply doesn't have anything like the kind of exclusions on it that the critical illness has.

Hope this helps!
 
Associate
OP
Joined
27 Jan 2019
Posts
163
Thank you so much guys, for your inputs.

PurplePhoenix will try with the car insurance since it has renewed recently and I think I am still within the grace period. Admiral is the one. Not sure if they do these kind of covers that we are discussing here. I know Aviva does car insurance + building insurance (which was added at the of the car insurance renewal) and I know they do the life insurance. Not sure about the income protection.

BinnsY, that a very complex arrangement. In regards to the critical illness you make a good point and it i something that we have touched when discussing this. There are lots of exclusions.
I think I understood what you wrote. However let me ask you something.
Can you have difference policies for these different cover by the looks of it. I guess to have real benefit one should have them in different provides right? But from what you wrote you have a duplicate life insurance covers right? Point one, covering the mortgage then you have the single life + critical illness for each of you which means that in the advent of any of you die (touch words) the other will receive a lump sum? Of course if you fell ill you would be covered by that as well.
In regards to the income protection. It is this that gives you a 'salary' till you are 60ish?

Thanks in advance. Lots of things to check damm. Cheers
 
Associate
OP
Joined
27 Jan 2019
Posts
163
Let me add BinnsY that your strategy is really nice. There is just one doubt probably I have asked above indirectly. Can we have a joint life insurance just to payout the mortgage and then each one of us have a life insurance + critical illness cover (having already a joint life insurance to pay the mortgage)?

I guess the income protection is a separate thing. Can be added independently right?

Now on moneysupermarket it says in there that due to covid unemployment is not covered. So I guess that instead of going with Accident, sickness and unemployment the best option is to go with Mortgage payment protection insurance? Or Payment protection insurance?
 
Last edited:
Associate
OP
Joined
27 Jan 2019
Posts
163
Another thing that I just remembered, if you have bought a house jointly can you setup the income protection to pay out the monthly payments from one side?
 
Associate
Joined
28 May 2019
Posts
17
for the garage insurance it could be either independant or via the freeholder. I've had both a leasehold flat and a leasehold house, the flat had to be insured via the freeholder (expensive!!) the house is standard buildings insurance. Freeholders can use the insurance policies to make a tidy bit of proffit - my house is a lot more valuable than the flat was and is a fraction of the price for insurance
 
Associate
Joined
19 May 2009
Posts
1,508
Location
Nottingham
So on those quesitons, some of it your right on, some not quite so much.

Mine are split between companies yes, but not to such an extent that each one is a different company. I have the 3 life insurances with one company, and the 2 income protections with another. I suppose there is some benefit in splitting it around, but its more just that they offered the best prices / cover. I'm not sure you would get a benefit using a differnt company for every policy as some of mine essentially have a "multi-buy" style discount on them where each policy is slightly cheaper because I have several policies with them.

You definately can have a joint life, and a seperate life + critical yes. If for example I died tomorrow, both the joint life, and my personal life + critical would pay out together to my wife. The same is true the other way round. The other benefit of this cover is you cover truly horrible scenarios. Generally most couples just have a single policy, it pays out once if something happens and it's done. In my setup, if for example I died, the joint, and my personal paid out, then for some reason 10 years down the line the money had ran out, and my wife had a critical illness, she would still then get the payout from her continuing critical illness cover. It essentially means if really terrible circumstances orccur we could get multiple payouts. Whilst this is obviously unlikely (i hope) by having the multiple policies its cost me nothing more, and this is the kind of bonus cover I get.

My income protection policies are completley different yes, they arent linked to the life insurance policies in any way. I have come across some of the phrases you've used before, but mine is simply called "income protection insurance" its in no way linked to my mortgage. Even if my mortgage were paid off, should my income protection need to kick in, it would. I know you can get purely "mortgage payment protection cover" but I think this is much less than what mine offers. Whilst the comparions sites might not show it, if you use a broker, you should be able to get income protection with the unemployment cover relatively easily.

Theres also no link to who buys the cover versus who it covers. In my case we jointly own the house, and despite most of the polcies having me as the main policy holder (or in the case of income protection being the only named person on the policy) it's actually my wife that pays for them all as this worked for us when we were splitting the outgoings.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
27 Jan 2019
Posts
163
Thanks for your reply BinnsY. I managed to speak to a insurance broker and he clarified lots of question had. Currently the income protection only covers the illness and accident events and not unemployment due to corona virus. Since the main difference between the income protection (illness + accident + unemployment) cover and the CI cover are in the first you would have and additional cover for unemployment and you would get monthly payments whereas on the second you would only be covered for illness and you would get a lump sum. Since the income protection doesn't offer any unemployment cover it is basically the same as the CI but in this case from what the broker said it covers more things like a broken bone for example. If you were to choose a continuous (can't remember what) you could claim several times throughout the lifetime of the cover. So he advised getting the income protection that covers the illness and accident covering you for your outgoings plus the individual life insurance alongside with the joint life insurance to cover the mortgage.
Learnt some stuff in here. Thanks.

Now there is an additional doubt we have. Now regarding the garage that comes with the house which is leasehold and insurance. Basically I am trying to find now answers to some question but will be speaking to my solicitor tomorrow or next week.

Is there anyone in here that has bought a house with a garage under leasehold agreement?
 
Associate
Joined
19 May 2009
Posts
1,508
Location
Nottingham
That doesn't surprise me.

For me I came to the conclusion the redundancy cover just wasnt worth having as I had the option to include it or not. Even my lower paying income protection policy has a 6 month defferal period anyway, and I just couldn't forsee a situation where, even if I was made redundant, I wouldn't be able to find another job within 6 months. Even if it were temping or something to tide me over there would be something I could do to keep earning. Illness / injuries are less predictable though, and like you say the beauty of income protection is that there aren't anything like the kinds of limitations on it like there are critical illness
 
Soldato
Joined
23 Nov 2019
Posts
3,307
sry for being dim, wtf is a coach house?

Also @BinnsY can you msg me the broker you used? I really need to get some of this stuff sorted out as our mortgage co didn't require it and we've drifted for long enough without it. We have some slightly tedious circumstances which mean standard default policies are not always straightforward even for travel insurance nevermind this stuff. A good broker will be invaluable.
 
Permabanned
Joined
22 Oct 2018
Posts
2,451
It all depends on the income you both have, the size of the mortgage, and what you want to do if one of you dies or falls very ill.

Any couple buying a house life insurance is mandatory but you can get it from a different company and as such you can cancel it after the first few payments.

For example, when I bought my first house the mortagage was well within reach of both of us so we decided we did not need any form of protection at all. The chances of us both losing or jobs was small and if one of us died the other would just take over the payments. So we took the life insurance to a separate company, then canceled it, and didn't take any form of income protection. But this may not be good for you.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
27 Jan 2019
Posts
163
That doesn't surprise me.

For me I came to the conclusion the redundancy cover just wasnt worth having as I had the option to include it or not. Even my lower paying income protection policy has a 6 month defferal period anyway, and I just couldn't forsee a situation where, even if I was made redundant, I wouldn't be able to find another job within 6 months. Even if it were temping or something to tide me over there would be something I could do to keep earning. Illness / injuries are less predictable though, and like you say the beauty of income protection is that there aren't anything like the kinds of limitations on it like there are critical illness

You make a good point and I agree with it. If you have an emergency fund that should allow you to get another job even if it is outside your area of interest just to pay the bills.

I've got a leasehold garage under a coach house. To be honest, I've never even thought about the insurance, but I probably ought to.

Yeah, probably you should indeed because if you are a person to use it effectively for your care opposed to store stuff, if a fire happens don't know if the owner of the leasehold is responsible for it.

sry for being dim, wtf is a coach house?

Also @BinnsY can you msg me the broker you used? I really need to get some of this stuff sorted out as our mortgage co didn't require it and we've drifted for long enough without it. We have some slightly tedious circumstances which mean standard default policies are not always straightforward even for travel insurance nevermind this stuff. A good broker will be invaluable.

A couch house is basically a house build on top of a series of garages. Basically you have a row of garages and then a sort of flat/apartment or even a house in some places like two stories town house like I have seen.

I dont mind posting it here, there easy to find on google, its these guys that help me set mine up.

https://www.lifesearch.com/

Thanks for sharing.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
27 Jan 2019
Posts
163
Guys, I have a couple of questions and hope you can help:

In our solicitor app we have a document about protecting our interests. Basically it is something to do with with protecting us against fraud and I asked for examples and was given one like someone trying to sell our house in our name lol and with all this online fraud and stuff he said this serves to protect us. In the advent of any actions is taken in regards to the property it would require a document from a solicitor. This sounds more something to pay them another way to make money. I don't know if you guys came across with this but is this something that you guys think it is worth? I can't imagine my house being sold in our names like that lol
 
Soldato
Joined
3 Oct 2009
Posts
19,892
Location
Wales
I've got a leasehold garage under a coach house. To be honest, I've never even thought about the insurance, but I probably ought to.

You absolutely should. It can be a minefield. I had a case a few years back that went totally pear shaped in a setup like this. Unfortunately I can't remember the details properly and don't work there anymore so can't check the file.

I think the arrangement was I was dealing with the purchase of the house above the garage, and the owner was going to be the freeholder of the garage (instead of the developer) with the garage leased to a neighbour.

This owner of the house/garage freehold was responsible for insurance which leaves them a major issue as they are also having to insure for risks of the use of the garage (from a buildings insurance perspective only, not contents) by a third party.

Yours is the opposite I guess but depends who your freeholder is and who is responsible for insurance.

I would suggest ensuring cover has significant third party liability cover. You wouldn't want to cause a fire in a garage which destroys someone's house (or worse) above you!
 
Soldato
Joined
3 Oct 2009
Posts
19,892
Location
Wales
Guys, I have a couple of questions and hope you can help:

In our solicitor app we have a document about protecting our interests. Basically it is something to do with with protecting us against fraud and I asked for examples and was given one like someone trying to sell our house in our name lol and with all this online fraud and stuff he said this serves to protect us. In the advent of any actions is taken in regards to the property it would require a document from a solicitor. This sounds more something to pay them another way to make money. I don't know if you guys came across with this but is this something that you guys think it is worth? I can't imagine my house being sold in our names like that lol
Could be setting up an additional restriction on the land registry that means when you sell the property a solicitor has to sign a certificate to confirm they have validated your identity before the sale proceeds. Means they will have to do extra checks to make sure you are you before they will sign (as it's then their risk) but means someone else is likely to find it impossible to sell the property fraudulently.

Might be something else, get clarity.
 
Back
Top Bottom