Roles and Responsibilities of the Freeholder and Leaseholder - when it comes to the Coach House Insurance.

Coach House Insurance is an insurance policy that includes leasehold garages attached to a coach house property, usually owned on a freehold basis.  In short this means the property is freehold, and the garages are leasehold.

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The freeholder usually lives above the garages, and has use of one of the garages.  Sometimes there are carports instead of garages; however the principle and insurance cover is the same.

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The freeholder must cover the whole building structure, including all of the garages, and must protect their legal liabilities.  If a leaseholder using one of the garages suffers damages or injury as a result of the building, the freeholder can he held liable – the legal liability is a ‘must have’.

Leaseholders also have responsibility, and are all to often un aware of exactly what was set down in the title deeds of their own property when they purchased their home with a leasehold garage, that forms part of another person’s property.

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There is no permission to install any Plumbing or Electricity.  No permission to store any goods/contents – the garage must only be used for storage of a Motor Vehicle.  The leaseholders Motor Vehicle is assumed to have insurance which takes care of the leaseholders obligations.  The leaseholder also only has use of the drive way to access the garage, and park their vehicle – this drive way space is not intended to be used as storage/land for the leaseholder.  For example you would not be permitted to use the driveway to store a skip, and should not use it for bins, bicycles or other items not related to the storage of a Motor Vehicle.  With agreement from the leaseholder, it’s possible to negotiate temporary use relating to the land/access/driveway – for example temporary storage of a skip during a home renovation for a period of just a few days.  It should not be permitted by the freeholder to allow any leaseholder of a garage, to store dangerous items such as Flammable liquids.

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The freeholder may also be able to ask the leaseholders for a monetary contribution to the cost of the buildings element of the policy – this is usually detailed in the title deeds for the property and is usually capped at around 10-20% per leaseholder.  The contribution must only be calculated from the buildings insurance cost – and all other costs on the freeholders policy must not be taken into account when calculating the contribution.