Subsidence

sunflower76

We are supposed to be buying my H's late grandfathers house in the near future. Ours is sold STC and we are moving into his property for a few months before we buy it to give us time to do it up before we get a mortgage on it.

It is a detached house that has a built in entry (passageway) down one side that leads to the back.

We have started to strip the upstairs ready for all the tradesmen to come and start and have found quite large cracks on some of the walls. It looks as though at some point the wall that supports the side of the house with the entry has shifted and this has made the floor lean slightly on this side. I don't really think that this is a recent shift as it just dosent look like it (very technical opinion I know). The downstairs shows no sign of any cracks or movement. We are told that it has always been like that and h's grandad had lived there for 30+ years with no problems.

I am going to get a complete structural survey done before we spend anything on the house just in case and we have been quoted £500 ish for this. If we have this done before the mortgage and it does say that there is some subsidence but nothing needs to be done as it isn't shifting anymore(fingers crossed anyway) I assume I will need to tell the mortage provider and they will ask for a surveyors report. Will the report that I have (potentially) just had done be ok or will I need another?

I need to sort out finding a surveyor tomorrow really as we are running out of time to get things done so any advice welcome.

clutton_2

if you commission and pay for a private survey you are under no obligation to pass it on to the lender.

silvercar

The mortgage company will send their own appointed valuer to value the property. If he notices a problem you could be asked to pay for further investigation, if he doesn't notice, he will just value the property.

provided you are happy with the structural report there is no need to bring it to the mortgage guys attention.

CFC

Well, the mortgage surveyor will notice it if the wallpaper's off the walls! Then he will err on the side of caution and reccomend to the building society that a structural survey needs to be done. ££££££££££££££££.

Redecorate after your private survey if you want to go ahead with the house and hide the suspicions...

sunflower76

I think it will be obvious to the valuer that the floors are wonky, let alone the cracks!

I guess the real worry is that although we have paid out £475 for the survey to be done (tomorrow) the valuer will pick it up and will ask us for a further structural survey as the one we have already done will be invalid in their eyes beign done before they have asked for it.

I guess I will know tomorrow whether to be worrying about underpinning or celebrataing that there is nothing further to worry about.

There is always something to worry about!