Buildings insurance - do we need it from exchange?

[iloverhubarbcrumble]

Help - I am confused. We hope hope hope to exchange shortly. Can anyone advise re whether we need buildings insurance in place from the date of exchange on the house we are purchasing? Completion would be about 6 weeks later. Thank you for any wisdom you can offer.

It has taken such a long time to get to this point and I'm shocked to find myself disorganised with (cross fingers) a few days to go!

Your solicitor should be advising you but iirc yes.

As you won't actually own the property until you complete, my guess is no.

It depends what is written into the contract.

Initially, the contract for our new house said we had to have buildings insurance in place from exchange, but we re-negotiated this point, and had it in place from completion.

You also need to check the terms of your mortgage offer not just the contract.

Good point Mollie - we did that too, which is why we changed the contract.

check if your current insurers offer it anyway - some do

we had to.

But don't panic, you can sort it out in a few minutes over the phone. We had buildings insurance only for about 5 weeks before completion

Message withdrawn

brilliant - thanks all. Will check with solicitor and with mortgage company.

Normally you would because technically the vendors don't have to (although in practice they usually do esp if mortgaged)

Normally you do need it, yes.

Our solicitor advised us that we had to have building insurance from exchange.

You're tied into buying the property at that point, so I wouldn't want to leave it in the hands of the vendors to have up-to-date, reliable insurance to cover any damage that may occur.

generally advisable, and actually cost of buldings insurance for 6 weeks will be minimal, so not worth effort haggling over imho.

Yes - in the worst case scenario the house could burn down but you would still be legally obliged to complete!