Subsidence - Buying House

islandzoom

Hello,

We would really appreciate some help on the information we have found out about the house we are buying.

Most of the information we have read about subsidence is quite alarming we wondered if anyone had any information that might help.

The situation is, The house is a end of terrace and we can now see visible subsidence on the front right corner of the property. This has caused cracks (now filled) under the lower window ( including 3 bricks being replaced) and cracks (now filled) running up the front of the top floor vertically 1 brick length in. Using a rough eye measurement it looks like the corner has droped 1-2 inches. The cracks look like they were filled some time ago ( not recent) but we cannot be sure how long ago.

Inside we could see the wallpaper has ripples in this right hand corner on both floors.

The building has not been underpinned. We have been told a previous survey noted the movement and the following specialist structural survey noted that the movement may have eneded. The offending tree has apparently been removed by the council. However we cannot be sure this was the cause.

We are now unsure as to whether we should go ahead with the purchase.

The main areas of concern we have discovered are the :

- Increased insurance costs
- Resaleability
- Further movement

We have been advised by a friend to see if any of the neighbours is underpinned, however we cannot find a way of checking records on this.. does anyone have any advice..?

And also find out if the subsidence is recorded anywhere as if not then our insurance premiums may not be effected?

We imagine the survey would pick this past movement up. Will that effect our ability to obtain a mortgage?

What checks/surveys should we ask the seller to carry out pre-sale?

We have agreed a fair market price for the property, now we have discovered the subsidence any opinions how much would a reasonable price reduction be?

Is theer anything else we should be concerned about?

Should we just walk away?

Many thanks for any help!
PS we do actually like the house...

motherofstudents

A structural engineer's report would help. You need to be sure it is subsidence or just settlement. You mentioned a tree so need to check whether removing it could have caused heave. If subsidence, yes it can be a headache to get insurance etc. but first you have to be sure what it is.

somalt

Sometime with subsidence, they don't underpin, it's expensive and it's not always necessary. If it's a Victorian terrace, the foundations would be shallow by current standards and just removing the tree may have been enough to stop there being any progressive movement. It's then safe to carry out repairs to the house.
There are some key things that you need to know.
1 When were the repairs carried out, and has there been any monitoring carried out since. (If it was a long time ago, 15 - 20 years you'll have more options for insurance)
2 Does the property have buildings insurance? And will the present insurers continue cover if you do go ahead with the purchase? (I think you may struggle with a mortgage if it's not possible to insure the property)

I would suggest getting it checked out and be ready to back away.

tulipz

Late last year, we fell in love with a property....we almost bought it... We were told about the subsidence issues in the last minute...it was done almost 20 yrs ago and it was due to a tree. I did extensive research at that point...the vendors were paying £700 for insurance...it would have been £300 otherwise! L&G was willing to insure it like a normal property if underpinning is over 15 yrs ago and if the engineers report is fine....

We ended up not buying that property.....

ruggedtoast

We also backed out of a property where subsidence came to light. In this case there was some long-standing movement on one of the walls that came up in the survey. Seemed like no big deal.

Then the searches came through and it turned out next door (it was a semi) had been underpinned (underpinning requires planning permission so will come out in your local searches if it has been done properly).

It was a real pain getting insurance and as the house was at the very top of our budget we didn't think it was worth it in the end due to the difficulties if we needed to resale.

Monitoring a house for movement takes months, though a professional can make a good assessment of the current condition and whether it appears to be ongoing. Adrian Flux will insure properties with movement though they require an engineers report beforehand.

I dont recommend lying to the insurer about it, that can prove very costly, and if you have to put in a claim for subsidence damage in the future they are likely to find out quite easily.

Sugared-frog

islandzoom wrote: »

Hello,
The building has not been underpinned. We have been told a previous survey noted the movement and the following specialist structural survey noted that the movement may have eneded. The offending tree has apparently been removed by the council. However we cannot be sure this was the cause.

We are now unsure as to whether we should go ahead with the purchase.

The main areas of concern we have discovered are the :

- Increased insurance costs
- Resaleability
- Further movement


And also find out if the subsidence is recorded anywhere as if not then our insurance premiums may not be effected?

We imagine the survey would pick this past movement up. Will that effect our ability to obtain a mortgage?

I've just bought a property that the mortgage valuer's surveyor thought had subsidence. As a result we had to get additional surveys done both for them to agree to mortgage the property and then later for the insurance company. Luckily for us the last survey (and several of our previous ones) stated that there wasn't subsidence in our case. It really held up the buying process, cost us money and time for all the surveys and at several times looked as though it might not go through.

You say there are visible ripples in the inside ... why didn't they fix those at the same time as the exterior work (are they new perhaps?) ... what exterior work was carried out (or they just filled in the cracks?). I would have thought they needed to carry out stitching work on the inside and out (not too sure of what they do have to do myself).

There will be a record of the council removing the tree which they would only have been likely to do for either disease or subsidence I suspect.

When we phoned around trying to get insurance we only had to mention that someone thought there might be and nobody would touch us with a barge pole. And they do ask you if the property has - answer no and then claim and I guess you could find you are not insured.

What survey are you having - I presume structural rather than homebuyers?

islandzoom

Hi Thanks For your reply's,
In answer to the questions:-

The corner of the House has sunk 1-2 inches.
A prevous sale fell through, we were told the Structural survey they had done picked up the movement and the following structural engineers report said the movement had probably stopped and also the Vendor said it was due to a tree in the street however that has now been removed ( my ppartner thinks that it was not a tree as connot see where one would be in the vicinity. We have not seen any of this documentation, no copies exist as we are purchasing through a different agent. The previous one has just been quite helpful. The previous buyers pulled out after spending the money on surveys etc.. which must have been hard to take.

So - we are not sure of the cause. The exterior cracks have been filled(a bit messy i should add).
No stitching has been carried out.

Can you tell us which Surveys you had carried out and how much thet cost?

The house needs rennovation and the wallpaper is old, hence we can see the wallpaper coming away/rippling effect althought the plaster underneath seems level.

We are not sure about

monitoring since the movement
If insurer will transfer
When repairs wer carried out

- we can ask.

Neither the vendor nor the Estate agent have offered information, we were lucky we noticed this on the 3rd view. We did ask but the agent said nothing came up on the survey of note in the previous views. Clearly doing his best to sell this one..

As the house is a probate house we expect there will be little comeback on the seller as they inherited the house so can claim they can only say what they were told by the passed away owners.

We are now thinking
- if we spend the money on all the surveys for all the parties..

1. property survey will record movement/subsidence
2. the insurers will have to know
3. the insurance premium will be £800 ish (at the moment)
4. We may not get subsidence cover/a large excess
5. The property will not sell quickly when we more nor for a price similar to surrounding ones.

And this is the best case,
worst case
1. insurance is even more
2. it eventually needs underpinning
3. its even harder to sell

the best case doesnt look good, the worst case ( well ... a nightmare)

ruggedtoast

You can't buy a house without a survey if you need a mortgage. Suggest you assume it will pick up movement at the very least and proceed on that basis.

Incidentally full on subsidence with underpinning is no more damning that "movement" as far as insurers are concerned, in either case if you are honest when taking out the policy you will never be able to get standard cover, and nor will anyone you try and sell to.

islandzoom

We found a difference in insurance premiums between the movement vs underpinning.
If you have had underpinning it seems to cost £400-£700 more per annum.

If we had to claim on subsidence i guess we would have to pay and excess and following on from that a higher premium for house insurance as would anyone we sell to..

Can you tell us which Surveys we may need to have carried out for mortgage company and insurer and how much they cost?

Thanks

IHateDida

We have backed out on 2 houses with subsidence (wasting...or not...£1000 in survey fees in the process).

Basically I read too many "run for the hills" comments on here - and if I was having doubts about buying, when it came to sell either property...you can bet any buyers also would.

I felt it was too much risk and walked away - and I'm glad I did. Despite one being the perfect house in every other way for me, there will be other houses (I am still looking!).

Good luck either way - but if you are having any doubts at all - I would say back out - its an awful lot of money to pay when you aren't sure of something.

Sugared-frog

You asked what surveys the mortgage lenders require - the normal is the valuation survey that they carry out.

In our case we had paid for a separate structural survey as we wanted a fuller picture and it was an older house. Our survey came back with major wall ties problem, theirs agreed possible wall ties issue but also that they thought "possible progressive subsidence". They then said to get a mortgage we would need to get further surveys into damp, cavity wall ties and structure. We did and they agreed to mortgage us.

Then to exchange you need to get insurance. At that point I found none of the normal ones would touch us with the "possible subsidence" on the valuers survey. Looked at the specialist ones - they would but would require an excess greater than the mortgage company would allow. All suggested going to the current insurers to carry on insurance. But our property was a probate sale in which the property had been bought by the bank organising the sale (for charities), and was currently insured under a block insurance.

It was suggested the only ones left to insure us was the mortgage company. Although they had accepted our previous surveys for the mortgage, it was a separate part of the company that dealt with the insurance. After seeing all the survey information we had, their underwriters required a separate survey. Luckily in our case that one came back it was a crack caused by wall ties and not subsidence at all. And buildings insurance therefore came in at £200. Less than the cost of the last survey so worth it for all the future reduction in insurance each year. (Having to get a survey for insurance purposes I assume is fairly rare).

If things had proceeded normally we would probably have been in in November, the above meant it was the end of January before we completed.

I would ask the vendor to tell you exactly what has been done - my previous house had some small amount of movement caused by shallow foundations on shrinkable clay with a small tree near by. I know there was some documents relating to the stitching work that was carried out - but there wasn't anything major or underpinning just some internal cracks of a couple of millimetres. But even with that we were unable to change insurance companies. I can't imagine how a drop of a couple of inches wouldn't require more work. (At this point I'm beyond my knowledge but I would have thought that they would be able to show you insurance documents, even if it meant going back to the insurers to get them).

We did contemplate trying to work out how the value of the house had been reduced by having subsidence and the cost of dealing with it, and then reducing the offer by that amount. Luckily it turned out that we didn't have to. But we were worried how that label might stick. Even now having bought the house there is still a slight niggle whether I need to declare next year that I was refused insurance when applying for insurance.