Landlords owning properties in areas at risk of flooding and who have had insurance charges rocket in recent years have been asked to join a campaign to stop the government excluding rental properties from affordable' flood protection plans.
The British Property Federation is asking anyone who has seen their premiums rise, or who is finding it hard to obtain buildings insurance for flood, to fill out a short online questionnaire as it steps up its campaign to ensure that Flood Re, the government's new flood insurance scheme, will be available to all homeowners.
At present, plans drawn up by DEFRA and the Association of British Insurers would see around 10 million homes excluded for buildings insurance, including the whole private rented sector, the majority of leasehold properties such as flats, band H homes and all residential property built after 2009.
With over five million leasehold and four million private rented sector properties in the UK, millions of households could be excluded from the scheme.
Ministers have claimed that these groups will still be able to access affordable flood insurance, but anecdotal evidence gathered by the BPF suggests that some homeowners in at-risk areas have seen bills more than quadruple in recent years, and many fear that this will only get worse.
Ian Fletcher, Director of Policy at the British Property Federation, says: We urge everyone who has seen the cost of their flood insurance rise to complete this short survey and to circulate it to those in their community who also might be at risk. We would also urge them to alert their MP as to what is going on. Data of this kind will be vital as we continue our lobbying to ensure that all homes will be included in the scheme.
Meanwhile new figures from Fixflo.com show that letting agents handled almost three times as many calls from tenants reporting property damage and requesting urgent repair work in the first quarter of 2014 compared to the previous quarter - and almost all of the rise was down to storms battering large swathes of the British Isles.
The level of calls from tenants living in south west England were particularly high during the period from December 2013 to March this year.
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