Most claims on home and contents insurance proceed smoothly, except perhaps for the occasional argument about how much something was worth. But another re-occurring problem is where the damage is due to poor maintenance of the building itself. The insurers take a very dim view of this and may scale down or even reject your claim, as a result.

Our advice is to give your house an annual Maintenance MOT every spring. By carrying out a few simple checks, it’s possible to catch problems at an early stage.

Snow, frost, rain and wind put the biggest day-to-day strains on the structure and heating in your home. Most homes develop a few problems in the winter months, so a check in spring can save considerable time and expense further down the line. It’s not as if you’ll be paying out money that you could claim later on your insurance. Indeed, any costs included in a claim that were really a maintenance issue, will automatically be rejected by your insurer.

Here’s our ten point MOT for your home:

1. Get a pair of binoculars and check out your roof. Search for slipped, cracked or loose tiles. A leaking roof can result in major damage and allow rot to take hold in the roof. There’s also a safety issue. If a tile falls off, someone could be badly injured. Even your car could be damaged!

2. Check out the exterior paintwork. Any peeling, cracked or blistered paintwork needs attention. Then touch it up to preserve the wood from further cracking. Summer time can be especially hard on paintwork with expansion and contraction cracks resulting from high temperatures and big temperature changes.

3. Clean the gutters out. Autumn especially creates a lot of debris that needs to be removed. Blocked gutters and down spouts can cause immense damage if water is left to overflow and penetrate. Just be careful with this job. Working with ladders is dangerous so maybe you can get your window cleaner on the job!

4. If you’ve used your chimney heavily during the winter, get it swept. The danger is that any heavy build up of soot could catch fire.
5. Walk around the house and make sure that nothing is covering over, or bridging, the damp course. Garden rubbish pilled up against the wall is the most common offender. If damp gets past your damp course you’ll end up with damp inside the house, damage to your decoration and plasterwork, and probably rot.

6. When you are planting trees and shrubs you need to make sure that their roots are not going to cause damage. If roots penetrate your drains or get into your foundations you could be in for horrendous bills. Popular and willow trees are some of the worst offenders. Did you know that you shouldn’t have a popular tree within 150 feet of a property? New houses built within this distance, have to have specially reinforced foundations!

7. Whilst on the subject of trees, you should be aware that your Buildings insurance will usually cover you for damage caused by falling trees. But what happens if the tree was rotten or the bough already damaged? Yes, you’ve guessed it, that’s a maintenance issue. Unless you can show that you took reasonable care of the trees, the insurer could refuse any subsequent claim. If have big trees you are advised to get an annual report from a tree expert detailing any work that is needed – and don’t forget to carry it out!

8. Do you have any plants climbing up the house? Check out that they are not causing damage to your brickwork. Ivy is the biggest offender.

9. Now inside your house. Get your central heating boiler serviced – it’s had a hard winter! Also get it checked out for carbon monoxide emissions. Whilst he’s there, get the engineer to give your radiators the once over.

10. Finally, up into the loft. Check for signs of water penetration, and rodent damage to the exposed wiring. Squirrels love warm lofts and they love wiring! The fire brigade hate squirrels! And whilst you there, remove any old wasp or bird nests and block up the openings.