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Subsidence issues

I'm trying to sell my bungalow (I have issues with mine aswell)and my mum is selling her house so we can jointly buy a home to live in together. 8 yrs ago she had subsidence work carried out on her insurance. They just mended the drains and filled cracks in brickwork and redocorated her home. Now the cracks have re-appeared. Her insurance company wouldn't come out, they told her to get a builder to look. So she didn't pay she got a builder neighbour to look and they said it looks fine, this was over a yr ago. The insurance company wrote letter saying as we haven't heard back we presume everything ok and dropped the matter (my mum is in her 70's and can't deal with the stress) There is now the new tiles in the re-done bathroom cracking, the porch brickwork re-opened, the bay window is crooked that you can see daylight under the opener and dropped ceilings have cracks and bathroom door won't shut - exactly like 8 yrs ago. Today she is having the property surveyer in as she has offer on her house and the sale of her house predicts if we can live together. I have a feeling they will not buy it and my mum is set on living with my family as she is frail nad has health issues, the stress is unbearable. What next?

Comments

  • cramg
    cramg Posts: 88 Forumite
    I hate to say this but it is very doubtful the house will sell at all even if the insurance company repair and underpin where necessary.

    We recently viewed a 5 bedroom house built only 12 years ago with double detached garage. The garage being detached had one wall underpinned last year due to subsidence. I phoned 4 home insurance companies and they all said they would not insure such property and common rule of thumb would be for me to take on the existing vendors policy. For added reassurance, i also asked my IFA to speak to a few mortgage lenders all of which responded that they would not mortgage such property. This was all based on the garage only being underpinned as well.

    Unfortunately, your faced with a serious dilemma. Personally i would push your insurance company to rectify the issues, after all, they have insured the house. Then, the first option would be to rent it out rather than sell it. If you do still want to sell, i see the only option being to sell at a seriously low price and hope a cash buyer comes along.

    Sorry to hear of your position and best of luck resolving it.
  • rob404uk
    rob404uk Posts: 177 Forumite
    To get it out of your hands quickly, perhaps auction is the best method for you to sell.
    The reason I say this is because I nearly bought a house that came up with subsidence in a search. I then tried to haggle the price down, the vendor would not budge, I pulled out.
    What I am saying is if you sell though an estate agent, you may have a number of attempted sales fall through. At least at auction they would be forced to complete.
  • Well the surveyer went round yesterday but my mother hasn't got back to me and I'm too scared to phone to ask what has been said as I know if it's bad she'll be upset as she'll think she can't sell it and will have to stay put. The other question is: the potential buyers arranged this survey so does that mean they don't tell the seller (my mother) anything as he isn't acting on her behalf? Maybe they will arrange a structural engineer to go round? I'm not sure how it works
  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    The other question is: the potential buyers arranged this survey so does that mean they don't tell the seller (my mother) anything as he isn't acting on her behalf?

    Their surveyor their report. They are paying for it.
  • So I take it my mother will only find out when they pull out of the sale? maybe she won't be told why either. Does the report take a while to prepare before they give it to the potential buyer? How long could that take?
    She trusted her insurer to take care of the subsidence repairs all those years ago and still has the paperwork. My partner (being in the building trade) said at the time it maybe should have been underpinned but I bet the insurers thought just do the minimum! I would like to talk to her insurers but of course they would only want to deal with my mother but as she has health issues she wouldn't want any fuss.
  • On the other hand, if I were the viewer that had just wasted money on a survey (ie spent money on a survey, only to find the house was too bad to buy) I would be glad of the chance to at least mitigate my losses by getting some of the cost of the survey back from the vendor.

    Hence, I would probably be open to an offer from the vendor to repay me half the cost of that "wasted survey" if I provided them with a copy of it. Say they had a £300 survey done, for instance, then OP's mother could offer to give them £150 of it if they will give her a copy. She gets a copy of a survey on her house more cheaply than she otherwise would and the viewers get half their money back and would only have wasted £150.
  • well, they have found subsidence again, they sent the structural engineer round and my mum has had to phone up the insurance company that did the work last time, they are insisting she pay the £1000 excess even tho the struc eng said they should have underpinned last time! Makes my blood boil, esp as they refused to come and check a couple of years ago when we first noticed a problem.
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