Author: Dot Piper

There has been a tremendous boom in overseas property ownership. Whether for personal use as a family, holiday or retirement property or as an investment property, the market shows no sign of slowing down.

In the excitement of making the decision to go ahead, it’s easy to overlook the importance of taking professional advice with regards to the legal situation.

The law in respect of property and mortgages abroad is very different from that in the UK. Local practices, customs and regulations are very different and vary from country to country. One of the most common mistakes made by people purchasing overseas property is to assume that everything will be similar to the UK and there can be nasty shocks in store when the reality of the very different legal system strikes them. Television programmes have highlighted problems in proving ownership, lack of planning permission or plans for three lane highways cutting virtually cutting through the garden.

It needn’t be like this. Expert advisers are in a position to guide buyers through the maze of foreign property purchase and to help them to get independent and specialized advice from professional people such as surveyors, architects and the all-important solicitors.

As far as financing the purchase, it is usual to think about either raising the money on existing UK property or alternatively to arrange a mortgage using the foreign property as security, via an overseas lender.

Assuming you own property in the UK and are buying your overseas property as a holiday home or investment, the easiest route to take would be to arrange a loan on the equity in your home. By releasing this equity you would be able to complete any deal without undue delay.

Alternatively, it may be possible to get an improved interest rate by raising a mortgage on the overseas property you plan to buy. There is an added advantage in this option, in that the legal title of the property would be checked by the lender, who would ensure that all other aspects of the purchase would be in order, such as registration in the buyer’s name, valuation and checking of any building certificates, regulations and planning permissions.

European interest rates are generally lower than those in the UK. Because of this, with Spanish property, most buyers are advised to take out a Euro mortgage, although technically you could choose all major currencies. If buying property in France or Italy then a Euro mortgage is required.

Euro mortgage repayments must be in euros. There will be some currency fluctuations and this should be taken into account when planning your monthly repayments.

Your adviser will be able to help you with the choice of which mortgage is for you. For instance, if you intend to rent out your Spanish property via a Spanish agent, any income will be in euros. Rental received can be paid into a Spanish bank account to help to fund the mortgage repayments, thus avoiding any fluctuation in currency when transferring money each month. Obviously in this case a Euro mortgage makes sense.

A sterling mortgage would avoid the fluctuating currency problem if the property is purely for personal use and there is no foreign income. However, the savings on interest rates still make a Euro mortgage an attractive proposition.

For help on overseas mortgages, we strongly advise you to take some guidance from the experts. This can be found by going on-line to find a broker, where you’ll find their knowledge of the whole foreign property market invaluable.

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Author: Richard Norfolk

If you see your doctor for a report on your condition, be it general or specific to particular symptoms, you would not unreasonably expect an accurate report. If you were paying for the report, this should put extra pressure on your GP to supply one which would be precise and correct, not vague and open to interpretation.

When applying for life insurance it would appear that around 40% of us have a medical condition which we feel obliged to declare on the application form. This information is then followed up by the insurance company and, provided that it is acceptable to the applicant, they will then contact the GP and ask for a medical report on the individual. This report has to be paid for so the insurance company is quite justified in expecting it to be precise and accurate; unfortunately there are times when it is not.

It is a fact that doctors are often under pressure, with a workload that fails to leave adequate time for attention to details which are apparently rather less than urgent. The result is that there are times when GPs will take the easy way out (presumably to save time) and instead of supplying a report, they will pass on to the insurance company a copy of the patient’s record from the practice computer.

In these circumstances they are not only supplying the wrong sort of information, but they could also be breaking the law by breaching patient confidentiality in supplying information about a patient which the patient had not agreed could be disclosed.

As far as the insurance company are concerned, they have paid for information relating to a specific condition or conditions about which they need full and accurate information, to enable them to assess the risk for life insurance. They are not qualified to take the whole of a patient’s records and from them deduce the risk relating to specific conditions. That is a task requiring a doctor’s skills.

Neither the Association of British Insurers nor the British Medical Association is satisfied with the current procedure. There is concern that the agreement by which insurers are allowed access to some medical information could be damaged if they are allowed open access to the whole of a patient’s medical records.

As a result of this concern an agreement has been made between both parties, whereby the fee paid by the insurance company to doctors will increase by 6% per annum over a five year period. In exchange for this commitment GPs have agreed, through the BMA, to provide the insurance companies with reports of a good quality, which will give them the information which they need. At the same time patient confidentiality will be preserved, as the only information which will be provided will be that which the patient has asked to be divulged.

Thus the cost to an insurer of a GPs report will rise over a five year period from £74.70 to £100. A supplementary report will increase from £19.10 to £25.50 and a medical examination from £82.20 to £110 over the same period.

The BMA have for their part made the point to GPs that life assurance is for the patients benefit and should not be treated lightly; they have asked for accuracy in the preparation of these reports which do after all have a cost benefit for the GPs.

This is a relatively small price for insurers for to pay for accurate information, which should in itself save costs for them by providing dependable facts.

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Author: Richard Norfolk

With ‘unsolicited mail’ campaigns and extensive advertising, it appears that car insurance is very popular amongst providers. The sheer variety of schemes being offered to satisfy different requirements, when multiplied by the number of companies active in the market, presents motorists with a choice of routes as complicated as a road map.

Most providers have some sort of restrictions in place to filter out the higher risk drivers. These, including the apparently accident prone and those who flirt with the law by amassing points on their licences, are not popular with most insurers. Their cover is left to specialist companies who are prepared to take them onto their books in exchange for very high premiums.

There are also what might be termed ‘specialised exclusions’, where drivers are excluded by a company because of their record. For example a driving ban will result in refusal of cover from the Halifax, whilst a drink driving offence or 12 penalty points on your licence will result in a ‘no’ from MoreThan.

If you are in the sort of category where you are penalised for misbehaviour, then it is only right that insurance companies avoid passing your hefty costs on to more conventional customers. If you are anxious to get driving again, you could find it hard work trying to shop around for a company which is prepared to take you on. In these circumstances a broker will do a lot of the ‘leg work’ for you, and than can be no easier way to set this enquiry in motion than a visit to brokers web sites.

The remainder, those run-of-the-mill motorists who manage to negotiate life’s roads with only the occasional bump, are then faced with such a variety of choice that deciding on which insurer to go with could easily occupy far more time than the decision is worth. Perhaps the best start is to decide if you fall into one of the special categories which offer advantageous terms.

Gender is perhaps as good a starting point as any. Chauvinistic male motorists should consider the fact that their female counterparts can get special terms, based on the statistically safer driving of female motorists. However, the ladies should examine the terms and costs on offer rather carefully, as it does not necessarily follow that the best deals are offered by the specialists.

With any insurer it will pay to look beyond the ‘puffing up’ of the adverts and check out the finer detail. Will your no claims bonus be protected? Will the approved repairers supply a courtesy car? Is breakdown cover included within the basic cost? There tend to be a lot of extras available which in some cases will be covered in the basic cost, but where they are not provided as standard they could really load your premium.

Amongst the questions to be answered will be what level of excess you are prepared to pay, where is the car normally parked i.e. road, drive or garage, is an alarm or immobiliser fitted, do you need cover to drive other cars, and even – are you married? Single drivers often pay a higher premium, but don’t try getting married just to cut your insurance costs!

On the other hand you need to ignore ‘benefits’ which you are unlikely to need. Free cover for motoring abroad for example, is a waste of money if your car will never leave these shores. In this case you have to remember that there is a cost factor built into the premium for any ‘free’ service, unless of course you have discovered the contradiction in terms – the totally altruistic insurance company!

Many other groupings exist, where favourable terms may be offered to drivers meeting specific criteria. These can relate to age, employment, driving experience, even the make of car to be covered.

Whilst age can be used to apply ‘penalties’ in terms of cost for older drivers, where possible loss of alertness or slower reaction times are felt to make accidents more likely, the slightly younger can have an advantage. For example, those just retired are likely to cover less miles per year, and will almost certainly do the greater part of their motoring when the roads are less busy outside the rush hours.

Civil servants have for many years been able to get advantageous terms on a variety of insurance cover needs, with deals negotiated on their behalf on the basis of the large numbers who are likely to respond to the offers. It may be worth enquiring if your employer or your trades union has any such arrangement.

Owners clubs, comprising enthusiasts who drive a specific make or type of car, sometimes make similar arrangements for members whose choice of car could invoke insurance cost penalties. Classic cars of even recent vintage can be very costly to repair, especially when parts are difficult to obtain, and performance models have obvious dangers for drivers and insurers, including repair costs for drivers as well as cars!

It is all a bit of a minefield, so your best move has to be to go online and find a broker who will do most of the hard work for you, but first of all decide on the options which you need and which ones you can manage without.

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Author: Emma Mayo

Speed cameras are already the bane of the driver’s existence. There’s a lot of dispute as to whether they do help save lives, but one thing’s for sure, the Government is making a lot of money out of our collective inability to keep within the speed limits.

If you thought it was bad before, a new speed camera is being tested at the moment that could take the concept of being watched on the roads many steps ahead of its current format.

The new device, manufactured in South Africa, is a digital red light camera and speed camera that can be used both in mobile speed traps and fixed-camera setups. The strength of the device lies in its ability to perform more than one task – meaning double trouble for motorists. Not only can it take up to 100,000 digital images, it can also monitor three lanes of traffic at once. And it can be used as a mobile hand-held camera by police during the day shift, and then stored in stationary housing to continue its job throughout the night. It can also be controlled remotely so the camera can focus and zoom in as required.

Every picture that’s taken is accompanied by GPS time, date and location information, all thanks to WiFi and GSM systems, then the information can be downloaded to a remote base using mobile phone technology. Made by Truvelo, the ‘D-Cam’ will be ready to go on Britain’s roads just one year after it’s approved by the Home Office, which is set to happen imminently. It’s already proved popular in South Africa and Brazil.

At £30,000, the system isn’t cheap, but if you take into account the cost of a speeding fine - £60 – and then multiply that by 100,000 (the amount of pictures the camera can store) and that’s a significant profit margin for the authorities! Truvelo make around 20% of the speed cameras currently on British roads, they can only take 700 film pictures, so they need reloading on a regular basis – so the difference between the two technologies is quite significant.

So what does it mean for motorists? It means there’s even more chance of getting caught speeding. And if you receive a speeding fine, that will affect your car insurance premiums. With a quarter of British households having at least one speeding fine, which gives you three points on your driving licence, it’s a big issue, and it’s giving the car insurers an opportunity to cash in.

Recent AA research found that a driver with a speeding offence could expect to pay an average of 20% more on car insurance. Even if your record was as clean as a whistle before, you will be penalised. Don’t be tempted to withhold the information from an insurer either, as if you come to make a claim and the information is discovered, your policy will be declared null and void.

So if you get caught speeding, and the chances of that are likely to increase once the D-Cam is introduced, what can you do to keep your car insurance at an affordable level? Be extra sure to shop around. Never blindly accept a renewal from your insurer without checking out the competition, and get as many quotes as you can to make sure you’re not paying more than necessary. Many drivers pay more than they should because they fail to get a few quotes – and if you have points on your licence for speeding, it’s more important than ever to keep on top of things. Go online for the cheapest quotes, and be sure to get as many quotes as you can!

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