Dagenham flats fire: emergency accommodation?

[Plumpciousness]

This was the block of flats that had a massive fire last month that destroyed the entire block.

BBC has reported that the local council is still having to pay for emergency accommodation for some of the residents (£0.5 million so far, according to the news last night). All the flats were privately owned with no council tenants, so the council is paying in the absence of anyone else doing it.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd0zl7y5x0mo

Shouldn't emergency accommodation be covered by buildings insurance on the block itself? I thought the service charge included buildings insurance and then you buy contents insurance yourself. Shouldn't the buildings insurance include cover for providing emergency accommodation, like it does if you get it for a house?

Does anyone know why that hasn't happened here? How can flat owners/residents check what their building's insurance provides cover for?

If my house burned down, although my insurance policy would cover to rebuild it. Rent for 2 years while a home is rebuild is on me to find and pay. There’s no vacant “just in case” house sitting empty.

Ok, I meant the insurance would cover the cost of paying for emergency accommodation, not actually find it for you. And the cost of alternative accommodation for the duration of the rebuild (of a house, I don't know how it works for a block of flats).

Is that not standard cover in buildings insurance?

It will depend on their freeholders insurance. The whole block will be insurered by the freeholder - flat owners usually only need contents insurance as the freeholder sorts the building insurance and charges it back via the service charge. Block insurance is fairly specialist and you need to go with a company who knows what they are doing.

I am a director of our freehold company (we are a lessee owned freeholder) and in my time we have had our insurer pay for one flat owner to go in to temporary accomodation whilst repairs were carried out (there was a communal pipe burst that meant their kitchen and hall ceilings had to be repaired and the flat dried out).

It does seem odd the council has stepped in. It could be they are under insured or It could be the insurer is insisting the lessees pay for their own temporary accomodation and then put in a claim, but that could be difficult if they cannot afford it. In my experience many flat owners, especially younger ones, can be woefully under insured as they do not often understand the distinctions betwern what they are responsible for and what their freeholder is responsible for.

Also freeholders can sometimes choose a fairly high excess to deter small claims frlm flat owets or to save money. Ours is £1000 per claim.

Maybe part of the issue is lack of emergency accommodation due to the housing/rental shortage.
My home insurance policy for emergency accommodation is 72 HOURS.

There is some background between the freeholder and a management company who claim to only be responsible for communal areas. So it seems a grey area regarding responsibility and insurance.

The management company are correct - they are employed by the freeholder to manage the common areas of the block and generally will act on behalf of the freeholder.

Individual flat owners are responsible for the interior of their own flats. However the freeholder owns and is responsible for any shared areas or shared infrastructure.

This seems clearly to have impacted common parts and infrastructure owned by the freeholder as well as individual flats.

It is also very common for blocks to have communal buildings insurance.

Some flat owners seem remarkably passive. As a flat owner myself, in that situation I would expect my managing agent and freeholder to arrange to inform us about the insurance situation, progress communal insurance claim and repairs but would expect to have to arrange my own emergency accomodation and any replacement of possessions (but get reimbursed through insurance).