Crack damage in wall, contact buildings insurance?? Possible subsidence?

Souci

Hi all,

We are currently redecorating our house which we purchased three years ago. In the lounge was a long polyfilla type repair over the wallpaper on what appeared to be a fairly innocent crack - we never questioned the previous owner about this when we viewed the property. However upon removing the wallpaper, the crack is about 2cm wide in places and about 150cm long! It's a fairly horizontal crack going from a door sloping down towards the floor. We so regret not having taking pictures before and after removing the wallpaper... anyway...

We then lifted the carpets in the room and found a gap (1.5 cm) between the concrete floor and the skirting board in the corner of the same wall. I'm no expert but this shouts subsidence to me....

We're a bit at a loss as to what to do next. We've considered:

1. simply filling the crack, wallpaper over it and forget about it
2. our neighbour (who is in the building business) suggested repairing the crack by removing the damaged concrete blocks and replacing them. In addition, he suggested using metal bars and a special product that will act as a strong support to prevent any further cracks from appearing in the future. He suggested the same treatment for the gap between the wall and the floor in the corner.
3. contacting our buildings insurance and get a surveyor to establish what happened.

My husband says we should just get it repaired (ie option 2). He is against contacting the insurance company as if this is subsidence, it may mean living with this claim for years before it is fixed + our premium will rise next year or possibly they may not want to insure us any more. More importantly, he seems pretty sure that we would have to disclose this to potential buyers which would make the value of our house plummet, if at all sellable...

What would you do? Do we have any recourse against the previous owner? They obviously knew about this! :mad:

Thanks for reading.

Hermann

What did your surveyor say when you bought the house?

Treacle1983

just a quickie to let you know that if it did turn out to be subsidence and you did make a claim - the insurer HAS to offer you further insurance with themselves. However I don't think there are any conditions on what they'd charge you for it.

This is due to you being uninsurable for a few years by most other insurance companies after suffering from subsidence as it makes you a HIGHER RISK.

withabix

Are there any external cracks?

What is you house construction? Is it brick/cavity/block/plaster or is it brick/cavity/timber frame/dryline?

How old is the house?

Unusual for cracks to appear on the inside face of a wall only and also for the floor to drop away from the wall, as the floor will usually be sittging on the same part of the foundation that supports the inner skin of your wall (although that can vary with different types of construction).

Has the crack opened up any more since you bought the house?

huckster

Souci

I agree with your husband and the builder next door. Just repair the damage as suggested by the builder, provided there is no further damage you have overlooked. You could get another opinion from a structural engineer before you embarked on the repair job.

If you were successful with a subs claim, you would have an excess of £1000 (typical amount) and the Insurers may not agree to the repairs straightaway anyway. They might suggest monitoring the damage over a period.

Then there is the issue of the subsidence damage reducing the value of the house. A house with repaired subsidence damage recently sold locallly for about 20% below what its normal value would have been. I don't know whether such reductions in value are typical, but it would not surprise me.