Lobster wrote:

IIRC there is a requirement for the existing insurer to continue to
offer cover. Needless to say it won't be cheap.

I looked into buying a recently-underpinned property about three years
ago: only a small amount had been done and it had been carried out
properly with all the required certification and guarantees. My first
port of call for insurance was the exisiting insurer. They advised me
that no, they would not be willing to take me on as a new customer to
continue the insurance.

Whether or not they should have been legally obliged to do so is a moot
point, but that experience, plus the fact that I was unable to find any
other company willing to insure the property at anything other than
astronomical 'eff-off' prices, was enough to make me withdraw from the
purchase despite substantial expenditure on loan fees, surveys etc, on
the basis that any future purchaser would be likely to suffer the same
problems.


That's my worry. That any future purchaser is going to run a mile when
they find out that getting insurance is not going to be as easy as
giving Direct Line a call.

But yet this must the situation for thousands of houses around the country.

Andrew