Subsidence problem?

planningforthefuture

I’ve just viewed a house which I love but it has a big crack (3 inches wide, 1-2 feet high) in the external wall. This crack has not been filled in. The vendor stated that the property was pinned approximately 10 years ago and that he uses comparison sights to get a cheaper insurance quote each year. The property backs onto a canal and is surrounded by trees and shrubbery on one side.
I have fallen in love with the property but as a first time buyer I have my reservations. Are they complexities as a result of the above which I should be aware of when offering a purchase price?

Thanks in advance

princeofpounds

Get a proper building survey before going anywhere near it. They will be able to give you proper guidance, so best to talk it through with the surveyor either at the end of the survey or subsequently.

If there is little problem then you will not be looking at reducing the price much, just enough to cover patching the crack up.

If there is a major problem then the house will be unmortgageable and worth a fraction of its 'underlying' value until the problems are fixed.

dacouch

Run for the hills

jc808

3 inches???? run for the mountains

lostinrates

we bought a house with similar suspected problems 18 months ago. as a ftb too I'd say I'd be really wary, not because ''fixing'' the problem isn't possible but because the insurance on the house is almost impossible to find and is VERY expensive. We took insurance through our lenders, who then phoned up post the purchase and said they'd no longer insure it! we had a very stressful couple of days trying to find cover. (obviously the lender had seen the reports before we bought it and before we insured it and we were upfront from the outset.).

planningforthefuture

Thanks for your replies. I've taken note and will keep my money in my pocket. I can't afford to pay out on over the barrel insurance or on any other associated problems. I'm just upset that the vendor may have managed to mug me off big time.

Thank goodness for people’s contributions to this forum!

Sugared-frog

We are having trouble finding insurance on a property that has a very small internal crack that our surveyor says is cavity wall ties and the mortgage company says is progressive subsidence - in fact our surveyor said that it was not progressive subsidence. I'm not sure that you can use the comparison sites for getting insurance? And normally once you have had a claim you are usually stuck with the same insurance company that originally did the repair in case it re-occurs.

Try ringing around a few places to see what sort of quotes you can get. If the current vendor can get insurance easily then I suspect he hasn't been honest with the insurance company which means that he isn't really insured.

SecondLegDownIsTheBigOne

Sugared-frog wrote: »

If the current vendor can get insurance easily then I suspect he hasn't been honest with the insurance company which means that he isn't really insured.

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