September, 2010
Channel Islands insist on travel insurance
The Channel Islands is now one of those destinations requiring visitors to take out travel insurance. Holidaymakers and business travelers need to take out cover before arriving in the islands.
Many people think that their European Health Insurance Card will cover them but this is not the case because the Channel Islands are not part of the European Economic Area. Until recently there was an agreement whereby UK visitors could receive free emergency treatment but this has been withdrawn. The best advice is to make sure you have an annual or single trip policy and to check that it covers the Channel Islands as an approved destination.
Visitors to the islands may be tempted by some of the watersports activities on offer such as sailing, water skiing and scuba diving. Make sure that your policy covers all the activities you may be involved in. Insurers have different rules about hazardous activities so the best advice is to have a policy tailored to your specific needs.
If you are travelling to the Channel Islands and need single trip travel insurance or annual travel insurance contact Click4quote.com. Click4quote also offer other specialist travel products such as sailing travel insurance, so call 08450 89 90 91 / 01206 771 755 or go online to quote and buy.
Mortgage lending declines in August
The Council of Mortgage Lenders has announced that gross mortgage lending declined to £11.4 billion in August, down from £13.3bn in July. The CML Chief Economist Bob Pannell commented
“We face the prospect of a difficult second half of the year. However the Bank of England is likely to keep interest rates at record lows for longer to support the economy. This will continue to alleviate payment pressure for borrowers”.
In other words if you have a mortgage it will not cost too much! The problem for buy to let landlords may be finding a mortgage in the first place. Lloyds Banking Group has decided that it will only lend to buy to let landlords on a maximum of 3 properties with a total debt of £2m per landlord. Previously the group would lend on up to 9 properties per landlord with a maximum value of £3m. At the same time one is hearing reports of strong demand from potential tenants. What is your experience of the mortgage market, especially for landlords at the lower end of the scale with perhaps just one or two let properties to finance?
If you are a landlord looking for a mortgage then you should also be looking for landlord insurance or buy to let insurance. Contact Click4quote.com on 08450 89 90 91 / 01206 771755 or get a quote online.
Insurance fees under the spotlight
Which? recently conducted a survey 151 motor insurers and 180 home insurers on insurance fees and have reported that 70% of car insurers and 33% of home insurers now charge for simple changes such as updating an address or marital status. It was also reported that the average cancellation fee for home insurance is £31 and £40 for car insurance.
Which? believe that many of the fees were hidden in the small print and are excessive so they have issued a warning to consumers to take notice of the fees when purchasing policies.
For motor policies the average fee for updating your details was £21, the highest being £55. Home insurance policies were slightly cheaper, with an average of £18 and the highest being £35. It was even discovered that just to obtain a copy of your certificate if you happen to accidentally lose it could cost you up to £30.
So how does click4quote compare to the information released by Which? Well for all of our products such as homeowner insurance, landlord insurance, unoccupied property insurance and travel insurance we make NO FEE for making simple changes to your policy such updating your address or married name. We do not even charge for copy documents if you happen to lose them – we feel that is fair to our customers.
Yes, like most other companies we do currently make cancellation charges but our fee is just £15, half the average cost other home policies in the survey – so again we feel our charge is reasonable and fair.
For high quality customer service from UK based staff call click4quote.com on 08450 89 90 91. If you would like to call from your mobile, we understand that 0845 numbers are not usually included within your ‘package’ if you have a monthly contract, which is why we also give you the option to call our local number 01206 771 755.
House price news for landlords
The RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyor’s) Housing Market Survey found that 32 percent more surveyors reported house price falls as opposed to increases in August and reported that property values fell for the second consecutive month, in line with other findings.
The main reasoning for falling prices and the negative outlook is that more property is now coming onto the market, less interest from buyers in the uncertain financial climate and the continued restriction in mortgage availability, especially for first time buyers or those with equity less than 20-30%.
In combination this looks like a negative downward spiral and only time will tell if one factor breaks the chain. Although some expect sales volume to increase with lower prices we could end up with a restriction of new property on the market as sellers are less motivated by lower pricing. Although the end of HIPS increased of property for sale, only time will tell how serious the new vendors are to move.
Scotland bucked the trend, reporting price increases but Northern Ireland reported falling prices for the third year running.
Bad news for homeowners who would like to move, however good news for long term landlords as rental demand should increase along with rental pricing. Smart accidental landlords may have offloaded their property when prices boomed during the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010 minimizing their capital loss. In fact many accidental landlords let at monthly losses once all other costs were included such as landlord insurance, landlord legal expenses and landlord energy performance certificates.
If you rent your property, ensure you have comprehensive landlord building insurance to protect your investment.
University appeals for student landlords
It seems that there is still an under supply of rental property and rooms for Students within some university locations in the UK.
It is reported that Lucy Roberts, commercial services manager for the Carlisle campuses, is urging buy to let property owners and landlords to consider renting to students.
To encourage landlords and homeowners she was keen to point out the financial benefits available. Lucy said that landlords can make between £50 and £60 per student, per week and can make hundreds of pounds a month.
Over a 100 undergraduates at Cumbria University have enquired having struggled to find property or rooms to rent after obtaining a place via Clearing.
The reputation of students as tenants is not viewed as overly positive by some landlords so Lucy was keen to point out some good practice and dispel the opinion of students being problems tenants.
Ms Roberts stated that: “As long as there is a good contract in place and deposits have been paid we have less reported problems than you might think.
Considering this point, deposits for each student at a property are usually very significant sums of money, especially if funded by the student themselves. If the parents have been kind and lent the student money, the likelihood of the them doing something silly and running the risk of losing that deposit is probably lower still.
Those interested should contact the university who will advise how to how to register with the county council.
If you rent to students you need to have in place specialist landlord insurance to cover your property.
Thousands of Brits have invalid travel insurance policies
A major supermarket has just released research to show that hundreds of thousands of British holidaymakers travel abroad each year with invalid travel insurance policies. The reason is people’s reluctance to advise their insurers about pre-existing medical conditions.
The research claims that as many as 245,000 people traveled last year without telling their insurance providers about chronic back pain and 110,000 people failed to notify respiratory problems. If you have a recurrence of an existing medical problem on holiday you will probably not be covered unless your insurers were notified in advance and agreed.
Many people were apparently too embarrassed to talk about their medical conditions to a travel insurance company and others did not realize that their problem was relevant to their insurance.
It is always worth being open and honest when obtaining holiday insurance quotations. You may find that a pre-existing problem can be covered much more easily than you thought.
Buy to let landlords risk tax investigations
If you run a portfolio of let properties you probably have accountants looking after your tax affairs. Landlords with just one or two rental houses often struggle to cope with the record keeping required of them. It is not worth risking a tax investigation so it pays to keep detailed accounts and copies of all important documents.
Inexperienced property owners will find the Directgov.uk site helpful because it has a section aimed at helping landlords of let property to manage their tax records. Basically you must keep copies of documents proving your income and expenditure- invoices, bank statements etc. Also keep copies of tenancy agreements so you can show when the tenancy started.
Even experienced buy to let landlords often slip up when it comes to proving “allowable expenses”, ie what you can set against your rents to reduce your tax. Some of the main items are:
Agents’ and accountants’ fees
Loan interest
Buy to let insurance premiums for the building (and contents if appropriate)
Maintenance and repair (not improvements)
Utilities
Council tax
Advertising costs
If in doubt speak to an accountant specialising in buy to let properties. If you visit the directgov.uk site search for “Record-keeping for landlords”