Homebuyers /gazumping insurance

[Lolly567]

We’re FTB and worried about being gazumped (which almost happened last week) after paying for survey, conveyancing etc. Has anyone ever bought homebuyers insurance? Has anyone had to claim and was it easy? Was thinking of this policy..

When do you have to take it out by, what's the excess and is three months' cover enough? I would prefer 6 months or more as the process can take longer.

You can usually get a deal on conveyancing fees which means you only pay if the purchase completes. Check the Ts and Cs of the mortgage you are applying for too.

Thank you for your reply! Apparently it's £0 excess and I think it does cover 6 months as it says 180 days?

Our solicitor unfortunately does not do no fee no sale, and I'm not sure about mortgage as we don't actually have to pay any arrangement fees! So I'm thinking it might be useful to cover solicitor fees and survey if needed?

OP, I don't know about the insurance but I've had a look at what it covers and it's very specific (and doesn't cover most of what can go wrong) to make a sale fall apart.

Arithmetic not my strong point today

Ahh thanks so much for having a look at the policy! That's useful as I didn't realise it misses out a lot of things that can go wrong! Thinking therefore of maybe doing survey first (countrywide says it's only £160 for homebuyers survey asking with mortgage valuation which is a lot less than I had anticipated!) And holding off on the £200 the solicitor is asking for upfront until the survey comes back positive? Thanks so much again for taking the time to help a clueless FTB!

(and not getting the insurance if it is likely to not cover things that might go wrong!)

Gazumping protection is only available from their gold package / so that one is most likely to be the best option

The problem with not instructing the solicitor alongside getting the survey done is that the £200 will be to cover other searches, water, council (local) etc. which may highlight other issues. So say the survey is fine, it doesn't mean there won't be other potential issues.

Also the solicitor will start to investigate "title" which are the (public for a fee) documents held at the Land registry and may throw up other issues. If it's a relatively new property it should be straightforward but some of the wording can be incomprehensible to lay persons.

In short I would pay the £200 and look at everything together and then make a decision on whether to move forward with the purchase.