Intro:
Embarking on a self-build project is an exciting project, but it comes with a set of responsibilities, including ensuring your project is adequately insured and meets structural requirements. Here’s a comprehensive guide to the insurances and warranties you’ll need for your self-build home.
Site Insurances and Warranties: Protecting Your Investment
This specialised insurances and warranties safeguard both you and your property pre and during the construction phase. It covers a range of risks, including damage to the works, theft, vandalism, and liability for injuries or damage to third-party properties.
What Does Site Insurances and Warranties Cover?
- Physical Damage: This protects against loss or damage to various aspects of your project, including materials, tools, and equipment, due to incidents like fire, accidental damage, or theft.
- Liability: Covers your legal liabilities if someone is injured or their property is damaged during construction. This could include incidents on-site or even accidents involving workers.
Obtaining a Quote
Obtaining a quotation is a relatively quick and simple process. You will need to know the:
- Postcode of your plot. Professional re-instatement costs (total build cost) of existing and new building.
- Amount of cover for employee tools and personal affects (Typically starts at £10k).
- Amount of cover for own plant, tools and equipment (Typically starts at £10k).
- Amount of cover for hired plant, tools and equipment (Typically starts at £10k).
- Amount of cover for any temporary accommodation on site.
- Employers & public liability cover requirements.
The premiums will obviously vary on the level of cover you require but a £750.00 allowance for a 12 month premium should be sufficient.
Follow this link to get a quote with our industry leading partner, Self Build Zone : Self-Build Zone
Legal Expenses Insurance: Protection in Disputes
Legal expenses insurance is another essential requirement for self-build mortgages. It covers legal costs arising from contract disputes during the construction process. This could include disputes with vendors, contractors, or local authorities. Premiums are relatively low, typically around £50 for a £25,000 claim limit.
Our partner Self Build Zone offers a 1-stop-shop for site Insurance and structural warranties for self-builders, check the details below for their policies.
Self Build Insurance
Self Build Site Insurance is vital for protecting your investment during construction, covering renovations, conversions, extensions, or new builds. It shields new work, existing structures, and the entire site from risks like fire, theft, flood, storm damage, vandalism, and accidental damage.
Take out Self Build Site Insurance as soon as contracts are exchanged or just before work begins. It provides essential public liability cover from plot purchase to project completion, with Legal Expenses cover included to address any disputes.
Moreover, it’s your comprehensive shield, ensuring peace of mind throughout the construction journey!
In addition,
They are covered in the event that they cause damage or injury to a third party following a negligent act, which of course you would have to prove. Being a liability insurance, it doesn’t cover issues like storm damage, arson, theft of materials or plant, to name just a few — essentially all the uncontrollable things you really do need to protect yourself against.
One huge potential pitfall is if you are carrying out work close to your neighbour’s foundations. If work on your project damages a neighbour’s property, this won’t be covered by public liability insurance. You need to make sure you have a self build site insurance policy to cover your whole build from plot to completion.
Professionals’ insurance may not suffice, so verifying coverage is essential. Establishing a written contract with contractors is prudent, facilitating clear terms and resolving disputes effectively.
Lastly, when choosing the right site insurance for you, you will also have the opportunity to purchase our ContractStore contract package to help you ensure you have a properly written contract to protect you against further accidents that may happen on-site.
Structural Warranty
A structural warranty is crucial for both you and your mortgage lender to ensure the structural integrity of your self-build home. This warranty covers defects in workmanship, design, and materials for a specified period, typically ten years.
When Do Inspections Occur?
Inspections are carried out at key stages of the build:
- Foundations complete
- Masonry up to wall plate complete
- Wind and watertight complete
- First fix and plastering complete
Options for Structural Warranty
- Ten-Year Warranty: This comprehensive option covers a range of potential issues, including major damage, defects in the drainage system, and problems with the waterproof envelope. Premiums and inspection fees typically range from £2000 to £3000.
- Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) Professional Consultants Certificate: This option offers a six-year warranty at a lower premium, usually between £1000 to £1750. However, additional charges apply for technical audit reports required at each stage release, costing around £240 per stage.
Whether you’re building your own property, customising it or planning a project to sell on, self-building is well worth the effort. But it’s also a big investment so it’s crucial to plan ahead.
With some structural problems taking years to show and potentially costing hundreds of thousands of pounds to repair, you need a self-build warranty you can trust.
At Self-Build Zone, they understand the highs (and lows) of self-building, and they’ve been providing peace of mind for self-builders since 2004. Backed by A-rated insurers and approved by the majority of UK mortgage lenders, their structural warranties enable you to self-build new houses, conversions and extensions safely – and sell more easily!
Here is the link to get a quote: Self-Build Zone
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