Previous subsidence work

mark15

Hi, I am after some advice please. A family member recently passed away leaving an end terrace house. Her children have looked into selling the house, and a housing association were interested in purchasing the property. After lengthy and costly surveys etc the sale fell through. This was due to about 30 years ago (1976) the house end wall was replaced by the coal board due to subsidence. The cost was for £2000 back then which in todays terms is susbstantially more (approximately £25000). However the survey seemed to be unsure if the house was underpinned at the time, which is what caused the sale to fall through.
My family are now extremely concerned that they have received a house that cannot be sold or rented due to the subsidence. Can anybody suggest anything that can be done please? Thank you.

CloudCuckooLand

Have you tried asking the buildings insurer if they have any old records for a claim? May have had to go through them to force the Coal board to do it.

Ask a subsidence specialist to survey, as though to proceed with underpinning. When they hit old underpinning, they know its not needed... if they don't, they know it is...

lincroft1710

Unless there is clear evidence of subsidence preventing normal occupation of the house, it will have no effect on its rental potential.

sonastin

mark15 wrote: »

My family are now extremely concerned that they have received a house that cannot be sold or rented due to the subsidence. Can anybody suggest anything that can be done please? Thank you.

The house can almost always be sold - and in this case it will be more than the vendors had to pay for it. It might just not be at a price anywhere near the "market value" for that property. You'll need to find a buyer who a) can pay cash and b) is willing to take the risk/responsibility of verifying/fixing the underpinning. The most likely route is a developer who wants to make a tidy profit so the sale price would have to be veeeeeeeeerrrrry low to be attractive. But it is still sellable.

aberis

Having an underpinned property myself, I know the hassle and cost involved in insuring this.

However for everyone out there with older underpinned properties, I found some great news last night whilst looking for a new insurer.

Legal and General will insure an underpinned property IF the work was completed more than 15 years ago; at what appears to be no extra cost. I have just sorted out my buildings insurance with them this morning for around £240pa for my house which was underpinned in 1987/88

Apparently, speaking to the call centre agent, L&G consider that 15 years is long enough for any problems to re-occur.

Hope this is helpful; and spread the word ... maybe other insurers will start to follow suit.

Leslie_from_Pinner

aberis wrote: »

Legal and General will insure an underpinned property IF the work was completed more than 15 years ago; at what appears to be no extra cost. I have just sorted out my buildings insurance with them this morning for around £240pa for my house which was underpinned in 1987/88

Can anyone help us? We are also trying to buy a house with a history of under-pinning (more than 30 years ago). We appear to have two choices as far as insurance is concerned:

1. Continue insurance with the current insurers, who have loaded the premium to the current owners to cover the underpinning, or

2. Takie out a new policy with L&G, not mentioning the underpinning since it was more than 15 years ago, and cleaning the slate, so to speak.

Logic suggests the latter, since the premium should be less. But someone has warned us that a future buyer would be more reassured with continuity of cover rather than changing insurers.

Any idea which of these is the better bet?

dacouch

Leslie_from_Pinner wrote: »

Can anyone help us? We are also trying to buy a house with a history of under-pinning (more than 30 years ago). We appear to have two choices as far as insurance is concerned:

1. Continue insurance with the current insurers, who have loaded the premium to the current owners to cover the underpinning, or

2. Takie out a new policy with L&G, not mentioning the underpinning since it was more than 15 years ago, and cleaning the slate, so to speak.

Logic suggests the latter, since the premium should be less. But someone has warned us that a future buyer would be more reassured with continuity of cover rather than changing insurers.


Any idea which of these is the better bet?

What will you do if L&G decide they no longer want to offer renewal to properties that have previous under pinning.

Leslie_from_Pinner

Thanks for that comment. It's certainly a consideration, though the same argument could perhaps also apply to the current insurer. The trouble is that if you consider every possible eventuality you would have to conclude that you could never be certain enough to buy the house at all, so I guess it's a question of what level of risk is one willing to accept.

dacouch

The current Insurer has an obligation to carry on offering renewal under an agreement with the ABI, a new Insurer is under no obligation.

If / When* L&G start getting claims in from the under pinned properties they have taken on (They only started accepting them in the last few months. They will either stop accepting new customers or decline offering renewals to them all together. I have seen a few companies take on under pinned properties / previous subsidence in the past either unintenionally (Not wording the application questions correctly) or intentionally. Most of them stopped offering renewals when they got claims in, some of them carried on offering renewal but would not allow the policy to be transferred when the property was sold (This normally comes to light at the last minute during exchange and can mean the sale falls through or the sale price is considerably reduced).

* Properties that are under pinned are often only partially underpinned, this can mean one part of the house is stronger than the other. If something happens to provoke subsidence eg blocked drain, tree routes or a few hot summers then the house can start subsiding again. There are good reasons why 99% of Insurers will not touch a property that has previous subsidence / underpinning. If they were such good business there would be more offering cover.

My point being, think long and hard about breaking the bond with the existing Insurer, once you break it they are under no obligation to re offer cover and will normally decline as they feel you have been disloyal so they will also be disloyal. L&G could be in the market for underpinned properties for the long term or they could get their fingers burnt and drop it like a hot cake. They are known in the industry for their conservatism.