There are many situations when a property can be unoccupied. When you live in your home and you don’t own another property, you might not think about such situations often or even at all, but it all changes once you inherit a property, become a landlord, or when you want to renovate your property and need to move out temporarily. After getting over the shock of becoming a landlord, you need to understand your legal commitments are and how you can protect your property with insurance. This is  particularly true when the property is empty.

Below I am going to give you a few examples when unoccupied insurance is the best type of insurance to get when for one reason or another nobody lives in a house or apartment:

1.I am sure that you have heard that somebody living closed to you died and left their property empty. Things like this happen all the time and there might be actually a lot more unoccupied properties out there than you might think. When a situation like this occurs, the property becomes subject to probate. It is then up to lawyers to determine who the right owner of the property is and who should inherit. Of course, it is in the best interest of the relatives of the deceased to ensure that the property is insured when not occupied as various things can still happen to it.

2. A property is awaiting let. In this day and age, there are many properties that actually stay empty. This might not be the case in London and generally the South of England, I have seen many properties stay empty for a long time while living in the North West of England where the properties are generally more affordable and landlords consider it a good investment. When a situation like this occurs, landlords insurance does not come into effect. This is why if landlords suspect that their property might stay empty for longer than 30 days should be the right type of cover. Such cover can be very basic, but also very safe in case something happens to the property.

3. A property can also be vacant while undergoing renovation. The type of insurance you will need will depend on your situation, but it generally depends who is conducting the repairs. If you decide to do everything yourself, you might need a different type of cover than if you wanted to hire a contractor for the job. This is all due to different types of safety measures and regulations as well as the qualifications of your contractors.

As you can see, there are many situations when a building can stay unoccupied. It is in the best interest of its owner to make sure that it is always covered by proper insurance.