Coach Houses are built over 3 floors; similar to town houses, except the ground floor is a single garage. This is a popular and space-saving option for house builders to incorporate all the facilities a modern family needs using smaller plots of land to provide it. It is therefore considered financially economic house building. Economical house building means economic house prices! Everyone is a winner with this new space-saving concept!
This design of property is typically smaller, reflecting just 1 or 2 bedrooms – 3 bedroom coach houses are unusual, but we are seeing them being built more so laately.
The Coach houses are typically 3 connected properties (although in some cases can be more), one property owner will be responsible for insuring all of the garages upon which the block of coach houses are built, and can request that the other home owners – who will have access to their garage with a 999 year leasehold, pay a contribution to the insurance costs, even though the policy is not exclusive to the garages and will include their house too !. It is deemed reasonable however, that the policy holder can request around 25% of each of the other coach house owners towards his buildings insurance costs.
This is an effective way of sharing the cost of insurance and protecting every body's legal liability. The other house owners will also have to have their own Coach House buildings insurance policy however, to insure their own home (excluding the garage of course which is on leasehold through their neighbor) Tricky to follow? It can be without you have been given good advice! You will need to clarify detail of how everyone should protect themselves and their property against being uninsured in the event of a claim! This tend to be when policy holders realize that they are uninsured, in the event they make a claim!
There are usually significant areas of shared driveway space with these plots too, and this liability has to be included in the policy of the coach house owner who is insuring the garages also.
There are policies available to cover these risks, although they can be difficult to find! There are not many available on the market so it can take time to find the right policy for you. The most important thing is to ensure that the insurance policy you choose includes all of these risks and the insurance provider is fully aware of the build, set up of lease holdings, and the shared liabilities involved. Without investing the right time, ensuring that you purchase the right buildings insurance policy, could result in you finding out that you are, in fact, uninsured in the event you come to make a claim!