HOMEOWNERS concerned that their property may be blighted by a wind farm, a mobile phone mast or noisy neighbours can now take out an insurance policy to protect the value of their house.
A payout of up to £100,000 in the event of home blight is being marketed for the sum of £12 a month. It is the most important development in the insurance market since subsidence cover was introduced widely in the 1970s and is certain to appeal to the nation’s Nimby (Not in my backyard) mentality.
A condition of the policy is that it must be taken out within 13 weeks of moving to a new property or remortgaging if a local authority search was carried out. Owners must also sign a declaration saying that they are unaware of any current problems of threats to the property. The new policy is being offered by Lucas Fettes & Partners, London-based brokers, and underwritten by Lloyd’s of London syndicates, to protect householders against unforeseen events that knock thousands of pounds off the value of a home.
The payouts will be possible only if an owner decides to sell up and move away from the blight. The owner will then receive his selling price plus the estimated loss in value, which is to be worked out by a chartered surveyor. The policy will also cover moving costs and legal fees.
Payouts will be made if people are affected by nuisances including the construction of new roads, airports, prisons and other secure establishments, schools and hospitals.
Advertisement
Besides noisy neighbours, householders would also be eligible to claim if a noisy brothel or massage parlour was set up next door. It will also cover unexpected wind turbines, pylons and aerials, sports grounds, railways, tramways and undergrounds, factories, shopping centres, sewage works, housing estates and power stations.
At present the policy is available only for houses valued at under £400,000, which covers 90 per cent of the country’s 24 million private homes.
Richard Heighton, director of the company, said that loss adjustors believed that householders lost up to 25 per cent of the value of their homes if the property suffered from neighbourhood blight and this was why they had introduced a £100,000 payout limit on £400,000 houses.
He said that they had made it a condition for the policy owner to move homes to prevent any insurance scams. “We could not, for example, allow someone to claim the money and stay put otherwise we would have situations where people persuade their neighbours to be noisy, claim the money and then give their neighbours a cut,” he said.