When you’re a landlord and you’re paying a mortgage on a buy to let flat or house, you’ll need some sort of backup if the rent stops coming in. Banks don’t really care if your flat is empty, they just want the money because it;s business as usual.
Is there a way to protect landlords?
The only way to cover this would to include a loss of rent insurance policy into your landlord insurance policy. If the rent stops, the company will pay a percentage of this rent until your flat is occupied again, they can also help you find a new tenant too
What if I have a fire and the flat is uninhabitable?
If you have a fire or anything else happens to your property and it becomes uninhabitable, your policy will cover a percentage of your rent so you can keep paying your mortgage until the insurance company repairs your property for the tenant.
Preventing fires
Whenever you let a property to the public, always make it is safe for them, as you could be help responsible for their deaths if things go wrong.
We never want this for anyone, fires cause to many life’s and precautions should be taken to ensure they are no fires. Firstly install fire alarms or smoke detectors in your let properties, this is required by law anyway.
Do a fire security check and make sure you have certificates of this.
What about flooding?
Same again, if you live in an area like Cornwall, which is a high flood risks area, you might actually need this loss of rent insurance for a while because it may be a life saver one day and you’ll be glad you took the policy out.
How long will they pay it for?
This really does depend on the time it takes to complete the work by local tradesmen. If it takes three months, the insurance companies will pay your rent for this length of time.
They will want someone back in that property as soon as possible so you bet your boots that they will be on the back of the tradesmen to get that job done on time, as it’s costing them money each day.
Think about the hassle involve if you didn’t have this cover in place, what a nightmare it would be. Could you afford to fix the damaged property if there was a fire or your building came crashing to the ground?
Always cover your properties if you a have a mortgage hanging over them.