Owners have a duty to ensure that their own property and any common parts are adequately insured. The title deeds for your property will state whether or not you are obliged to take out a joint insurance policy with other owners to cover both your own property and/or common areas affecting a larger building. So do you need a common insurance policy in Scotland?

The level of insurance is generally its re-instatement value, namely the cost of re-building your home from scratch. The re-instatement value may be more or less than the market value of the property.

With the introduction of the Tenement (Scotland) Act, whether or not your title deeds declare you are responsible or not, you have a duty to insure your property against damage by a set of standard risks including:

• fire
• lightning
• storm or flood
• theft
• vandalism
• subsidence
• landslip
• leaking water tanks, pipes and domestic appliances

It is only in very limited circumstances, where such cover cannot be obtained or cover costs are extraordinarily high that you may delete items from the obligation to insure.

In a tenement where there is any shared or common property, owners:

• have a right to check that other owners in the building are adequately insured
• can ask for evidence of insurance
• can ask for proof of payment of premiums

If you receive a request for evidence of insurance, you must produce this within fourteen days. Refusal to co-operate, or an inability to demonstrate adequate insurance, may allow another owner to obtain a Court Order requiring you to insure or any factor may simply arrange insurance and recover the premiums from the errant owner.

Your title deeds may declare that you are personally responsible for insuring common areas or may declare that there is a common joint insurance policy with some or all of the other owners. Even if this is not the case, you may wish to take out a joint policy, and you can use the Rules set out in the Tenement Management Scheme as laid down by the Tenement (Scotland) Act 2004 to make a Scheme Decision about this.

The title deeds may indicate how common insurance costs are to be met. If the deeds are silent, you and the other affected owners will need to split the costs equally or in accordance with the Tenement Management Scheme.

If you have a specific query regarding a common insurance policy in Scotland, and your own facts and circumstances, please contact our commercial team.