Condo Loss of Use (HO-6): Temporary Housing When Your Unit Is Uninhabitable

Condo owners get a nasty surprise when they're displaced: they assume the building's insurance handles everything, then learn the master policy stops at their front door. Your temporary housing is on your own HO-6 — and knowing that early saves weeks.

Two policies, two jobs

Condo coverage is split:

• The association's master policy — the building structure and common areas. Depending on the association's documents, it stops at the bare walls of your unit, at the walls "as originally built," or (rarely) includes your interior — but in every version, it repairs property.
• Your HO-6 policy — your unit's interior, your belongings, your liability, and your Loss of Use.

So when a covered loss makes your unit uninhabitable, it's your HO-6 Loss of Use — not the master policy — that reimburses your temporary housing, much like a homeowner's Additional Living Expenses. No version of a master policy houses displaced owners.

Who pays for what: the quick map

The pattern is the whole lesson: the cause moves around; your housing always runs through your own policy. Where the cause traces to the association or a neighbor, carriers may sort reimbursement out between themselves later (subrogation) — but you don't wait on that fight to get housed.

Where it gets confusing

When a loss starts in a common area — a burst pipe in a shared wall, a fire two units over — both policies come into play for the property repair, and figuring out which covers what takes documentation. Photograph the source of the loss if it's visible, get the association's incident report, and keep your own claim documentation running from day one. Building-wide losses add a uniquely condo problem: dozens of displaced households hit the same small local housing market on the same afternoon. The families with their Loss of Use limit confirmed and a housing plan by day two get the workable options; the rest get what's left.

Watch your limit — it's the small one

Condo Loss of Use limits are commonly a percentage of the HO-6's interior or personal-property coverage, and in absolute dollars they're often modest — frequently the smallest Loss of Use numbers we see besides renters. That makes the burn-rate math decisive: a $15,000 limit is three months of extended-stay hotel, or most of a year at a lower flat monthly cost. Check the number today (it's one line on the declarations page), raise it if it wouldn't survive a realistic displacement, and if you're displaced now, pick housing that the limit can actually carry — for many condo owners that's an RV placed with family or on a nearby site, since the unit's own parking rarely works.

Start with the ALE housing guide, or tell us your situation on the request page. (Renting a condo rather than owning it? Your version of this page is the renters guide.)