Have rental properties is a good substitute for a pension, in most cases it can be more fruitful also, if run well. A popular trend is rather than let the property to one tenant, is to instead let to multiple tenants, in other words, set the property up as a HMO.
Insuring a HMO is not as easy or straight forward as insuring a standard let property – most insurers do not like the additional tenant exposure and the increased fire risk; so you’ll need to contact a specialist intermediary who can broker the policies for you.
What you’ll need to be astute to is the tenants you’ll be having in your property; a lot of landlords can be blasé on the prospect when disclosing this information. This is often not intentional, but due to the quantities of rooms they will have available, they may not know how many professional tenants they have, how many students they have or how many DSS tenants they have at any particular time – but having this information is vital to material facts of any quote/policy being correct at the point of claim.
If you allow cooking in the rooms, oppose to having a communal cooking area, in most if not all cases insurers will want any cooking carried in tenant’s rooms to be at/in a designated area, such as a kitchenette with a fire alarm fitted into the room. Not adhering to this is extremely hard to obtain terms for; and not to mention a huge fire risk for your property!
Aside from the above; the rest is pretty straight forward, in the sense that you’ll provide all the normal information, such as, year of build, construction type, claims history etc.
