Horrible underpinning situation post searches. Advice?

ruggedtoast

I made another thread about this, but as the facts have essentially changed I'll post again.

To cut a long story short, FTBs, saw a semi detached house we loved, no chain, vendors refused to budge much on price but offer eventually accepted.

Homebuyers survey said property ok, although it mentioned cavity wall tie failure for attention, and some cracking from past structural movement that seemed 'long standing and not progressive' as an observation. One crack had been fixed.

Mortgage approved we trundle on, our landlady is annoyed we cant sign another AST so gives us two months notice to expire at Christmas (nice). But hey, no chain eh.

Searches come back. Adjoining house was underpinned in 1987.

Insurance now next to impossible to get from most insurers. Others ask about state of 'our' property, but 'some cracking from past structural movement that seemed 'long standing and not progressive' comes up as an issue now so we cant say our property unaffected.

Specialist brokers not keen to even quote unless ties fixed and full structural survey, Adrian Flux broker said on the phone he 'wouldn't go near it'. We have no idea what the problems are next door or how well the repair was done.

Unison insurance offered a quote for a 'non standard' policy, so far they are the only one who would. They say its so long ago its probably ok, which I kind of agree with but the fact no one else will insure is discouraging.

It now transpires the vendors are aware of this and are stuck with Norwich Union as they did the original repairs decades ago, so the problems were caused by subsidence. The EA has suggested we:

a) Non-disclose the movement to potential insurers.
b) Take on the vendors insurance from Norwich Union and not worry about it.
c) Wait while they talk seriously to the vendor about how bad this is, and that if they lose us any other buyer will fall over at this point. Presumably so they might drop the price.

Wife was in floods of tears. I'm stressed out, we'll need to ask for a price drop, suck it up and buy it, or look for a new rental soon and embark on yet another 6 month AST if we arent to be homeless with a toddler after Xmas.

To say I'm in two minds is an understatement. I fear the property would be hard to sell. There is no history of subsidence in the area and as its the neighbours house that was underpinned (its further down the hill), that was causing the problems, its hard to speculate what the problems there are, or how well they would resolve them if they reoccur?

Then again its perfect in every other way, for a variety of reasons, we havent seen anything else as good.

Utterly horrible.

I've sunk best part of a grand into fees but am thinking walk away.

Am I being too cautious?

Jenniefour

An option is to instruct a surveyor to go and take a good look at this, as advised, to find out exactly what's going on and to find out exactly what work needs to be done and the cost. You could then ask the vendors to do the work before exchange (and don't forget to get an expert check on any work the vendor agrees to do) or get the money off the agreed offer price and have the work done after completion. A surveyor would be able to give an opinion about whether the movement is old, or whether further movement might have occured since the property next door was underpinned.

This would involve further costs for you and as FTB's you may not want to do something that incurs more expense. But this may well be an easily resolvable problem. And you may think it is worthwhile to pay for the structural survey, especially since the property suits what you want so well. And if the needed work is carried out I don't imagine this would cause major problems in future when the time comes to sell - there are thousands and thousands of houses in the UK that have been underpinned/had structural problems and have sold on.

Yorkie1

I wouldn't ever go along with option A from the EA. Their interest is in getting the house sold. They don't care if you end up on an insurance database blacklist - you are under a duty to disclose all material facts, and there tend to be relevant questions on any application for insurance. Deliberate misrepresentation is fraud.

ruggedtoast

They've offered to sort the cavity wall ties, but other than that there isn't any work to be done. The cracks have been fixed as much as theyre going to be by the insurers and our homebuyer survey said it was otherwise ok.

What worries me is that the problems apparently all originated from next door. If they start again from next door there will be more damage, which the owner may or may not be able to sort out. Apparently its an old lady who has been there all this time.

I had no idea the house had this history and am actually pretty peeved they werent up front about it.

I dont think I'm being completely unreasonable to think again. There is no discount at all applied to this property for this problem, and the fact it has a history of structural movement damage, repaired via insurance claim is pretty significant imo.

Hardly anyone will give us insurance.

In a way we'd be better off buying next door. It would have all the paperwork and engineers reports, clearly come up on the survey if not, and a relevant discount.

This one just seems to have all the disadvantages of the problem with none of the paperwork or reports.

richardw

I would have walked away at 'cavity wall tie failure'.

ruggedtoast

Yorkie1 wrote: »

I wouldn't ever go along with option A from the EA. Their interest is in getting the house sold. They don't care if you end up on an insurance database blacklist - you are under a duty to disclose all material facts, and there tend to be relevant questions on any application for insurance. Deliberate misrepresentation is fraud.

No, option A is absurd. I put them straight about that.

I have been completely upfront about what the survey says herein.

Previously I thought it was possible that you could argue the cracking was 'normal' movement, or I couldn't understand why the surveyor would approve it.

But as EA has now divulged there were repairs under insurance for movement I cant argue that.

ab7167

richardw wrote: »

I would have walked away at 'cavity wall tie failure'.

Me too. Cavity wall tie failure can be very serious, and cause the entire outer leaf of the wall to peel off. That is an extreme case, but possible...

ruggedtoast

We had a builder look over the cavity wall tie issue and he thought the surveyor was just covering himself. He rated is as a non serious problem (category 2) . The vendors are getting a builder to look at them and will probably repair them quickly if it salvages the sale.

I am really struggling to appraise this situation. There is no end of information about buying and selling underpinned properties.

There is next to no information about buying properties which haven't sunk themselves, but have been damaged by being attached to a property that needed underpinning.

It basically seems to be as bad as buying an underpinned property in terms of stigma and insurance problems, with none of the paperwork of reassurance of a surveyor who can actually check the area that previously subsided, or vendors who are really willing to drop the price much.

Cissi

ruggedtoast wrote: »

There is no end of information about buying and selling underpinned properties.

There is next to no information about buying properties which haven't sunk themselves, but have been damaged by being attached to a property that needed underpinning.

I'm no structural engineer, but I'd be highly suspicious that the property that you're looking at has the same issues as the one next door. Presumably they were built at the same time, on the same type of soil and with the same type of foundations. I find it hard to believe that one half of the structure was badly enough affected by subsidence to need underpinning while the other half is fine. Maybe the underpinning of next door slowed down the problem but how could anyone be sure that it's cured it? I'm not surprised that you're finding it difficult to arrange insurance and I'd run a mile at this point (if not sooner).

Maybe your current LL would consider letting you sign another 6-month AST at this point, giving you time to find another house to buy without having to move to another rented property?

need_help_please_2

It's an unfortunately problem that occurs with many properties that show movement. Insurers are risk based organisations and any sign of movement, historic or not, sets off alarm bells. It's not great news, but you will find it difficult to obtain cover. In my experience, if an existing insurer is covering the property, in the knowledge there has been movement, it's best to have the existing policy transferred to the new owners. If the property had suffered subsidence, the insurer will normally give an undertaking to insure any future buyer of the property. If you're gonna get stuck with someone, Aviva isn't too bad.

With regards to the movement, there is no way of knowing whether it has stopped or not. The only way to be sure is to undertake a period of monitoring (usually taken over several months to take account of seasonal movement) - a visual inspection is rarely sufficient. You also have to bear in mind that if you wish to sell the property in the future, many buyers will be having exactly the same doubts as you are having.

If it were my money, I'd look elsewhere for a property that has shown no signs of movement or has been properly underpinned (which the vendor can evidence).

Hoof_Hearted

I can see your dilemma. You like the house and you can afford it, but you must use your head here. It could be a millstone around your neck. Wall-tie failure is not trivial. The history of the house will remain and you may never be able to sell at anything near market value in the future. In addition, the problem will always be in the back of your mind. Unless you can get a huge chunk off the price, walk away.