Housing Tip of the Week!

Today we are launching our new feature Housing Tip of the Week. Each week we will provide a tip for homeowners, renters, people looking to buy city owned properties, residents, small rehab groups, community groups advocating for their neighborhoods and more. We will also incorporate information about legislation and efforts to improve our City's housing policies.

Today's Housing Tip of the Week is about homeowners insurance. I have had three instances of residents whose homes have burned in a fire but they did not have homeowners insurance, I just want to remind residents that while there is no law requiring homeowners insurance - lenders require it for mortgages. If you have paid off your home or inherited the home and do not have a mortgage it is still critical to get Homeowners Insurance. If something happens to your home, you will not be able to build it back up. The three residents who have had fires to their homes do not have any way to rehab their properties other than with their own funding - and they do not have it.

In Baltimore, we have the unique issue of residents living next to vacant properties that cannot get homeowners insurance. We will have a separate section for that, but I wanted to make sure people know about the Joint Insurance Administration. The JIA provides property insurance when the market place will not. You can learn more here.

Homeowners Insurance covers a wide range of issues. You can find more details here from Maryland Law Library.