Home buyer's insurance?

I wouldn't have thought it would be easy to get for two main reasons:

1. the insured would be able to ensure he gets a payout
2. it is so common that any premiums would be very high.

You wouldn't receive a payout if you set fire to your own house.

Not if they found out that I did it deliberately, but I imagine that home buyer's insurance would include a similar condition whereby the policy wouldn't pay out if I did something to prevent the sale going ahead.

How would they be able to show who's fault it was the sale didn't go ahead?

What I'm looking for is an insurance policy which will pay out if I get gazumped or if the vendor decides not to sell.

There may be grey areas as to who's fault it would be that the sale didn't go though. However, car insurance seems to be possible despite the difficulty in deciding who's fault an accident is when both parties blame the other.

I can't see how deciding whether or not a claim on a home buyers insurance policy is valid is fundamentally any more difficult than deciding if any other claim is valid.

No it's not, they abandoned that idea

tim

It's not quite like that. To avoid expensive litigation insurance companies often use a 'knock-for-knock' system where each pays their own client's costs. However, if you feel strongly enough that it is the other's fault, you can insist that that person's insurers pay out, rather than you lose your NCB if your own insurer pays you. Often, when pressed that court action is the next stage, that insurer will pay. However, they may not, in which case it's up to you whether you take him to court and hope to find him guilty, in which case his insurer will have to pay. But you may lose the case, or have to pay some of it. Not a good result.

Rob Graham

With car driving there are rules of how to drive. If there is an accident involving only two cars then somebody must be at fault. There are no such rules on how to buy or sell a house.

Have you tried Ladbrokes? Ask what odds you can get on you completing your purchase. Bet enough to cover your costs if it goes wrong.

There will be. The solicitor will bill you for the work they did up to the sale falling through.

Interesting idea.

Mine would not have done - it's part of their normal terms for conveyancing. They're a fairly large firm locally, so I guess they're able to spread the costs of failed conveyances as a kind of self-insurance - presumably they consider it a good incentive for people to choose them.

Pete