Insurance

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  • #4132
    GerryMcLean
    Participant

      I am a leaseholder in the Brunswick Centre, in a two bedroom flat of approximately 69sq.m. Camden is my superior landlord, but the freeholder is a commercial property company. The freeholder arranges insurance. According to the freeholder and Camden, the insured value of my flat is more than £450,000 (which is clearly absurd) and as a result the insurance premium in the service charge bill is very high, at more than £300 per year (with no cover for fixtures and fittings). Camden has refused to provide any information on comparable insured values on its other estates elsewhere, and when I made a freedom of information request on the point it provided obviously incorrect information: it said for example that Is anyone able to send me an annual service charge invoice for a comparable property so that I can see if the sum charged is completely unreasonable? Ideally, this would be for a similar flat (two bedroom) on a similar estate, such as the Whittington, Rowley Way, or Maiden Lane.

      #4134

      Just a reminder to folk not to share email addresses in public (otherwise you will be likely to suffer an increase in spam). If you are a registered user of this website and logged in, you will notice that there is a now messaging facility (it’s relatively new) so you can send a message to Gerry (or anyone else) directly 🙂

      Back to the question in hand; Gerry, the very approximate value of your property can be seen here: http://www.mouseprice.com/house-prices/brunswick+centre,+wc1n?SortBy=2

      Whether the charges are reasonable or not I have no idea. For 2 bedrooms in Kiln Place (60.7m), according to a recent service charge statement, the cost is £196.95 plus a 10% management surcharge per year (if that helps). Flat prices in Kiln Place can also be looked up on the above website.

      #4151
      GerryMcLean
      Participant

        Following a Freedom of Information request, I have received information from Camden on the sum insured for other estates. I already knew that flats in the Brunswick Centre were insured for an average of £450,000 each (that’s claimed to be the rebuilding cost, bot the sale value). I have now been told that:
        1. Flats in the Rowley Way estate are insured for an average of £9,164 per flat;
        2. Flats in the Whittington Estate are insured for an average of £7,065 per flat; and
        3. Properties in the Maiden Lane estate are insured for an average of £3,572 each.
        These figures are clearly absurd, and presumably wrong. If they’re not wrong, then very many of Camden’s leasehold properties are massively under-insured.
        Our leases generally give us the right to a copy of the insurance documents for our properties. This would normally include a schedule of all of the properties covered. Camden however is unwilling to provide me with a copy of this schedule. Does anyone else have a copy? It doesn’t need to be this years’s version – any from the last ten years or so would be enough to work with.

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