The opportunity to earn income from a rental property brings with it certain responsibilities for you as a landlord, which is why letting property insurance may be considered essential.

Public liability

As a landlord, you have certain responsibilities to your tenants and members of the general public.

If someone is injured or has their property damaged and it can be shown to be as a result of your property, then they could sue you for damages.

Public liability cover may often come as part of buildings insurance and will help ensure that, if this happens, you have cover behind you to help pay any court awards arising from the court action plus legal fees and expenses.

Protection of this kind may cover events like;

• a passer by in the street being hit by a slate or chimney pot falling from your roof;
• your tenant falling down stairs and being seriously injured after tripping over a loose floorboard that should have been properly maintained.

It may be worth pointing out that legal fees may still be payable even if no case is found against you.

Other legal issues

It’s not just in the area of public liability that you may benefit from letting property insurance that provides legal assistance.

Some, but not all, buy to let policies will provide legal assistance for lawyers to assist you in other areas though this may not include situations such as the recovery of rent arrears of the eviction of people who have no legal right to be on your property.

The extent of legal coverage may vary significantly between policies and it’s typically a good idea to read the cover carefully.

Nice to have

When you first think about rental property insurance; getting help with legal issues may not be the first thing that comes to mind.

You may obviously attach more importance to the more traditional areas like buildings insurance and cover for your contents, fixtures and fittings.

However it seems that in our modern day lives legal actions of one sort and another are becoming more and more commonplace.

So, having a little help as part of your letting property insurance package may be no bad thing.