Underpinned house - HELP!

marsman802

Great chance to hammer the price down if you are comfortable with the mitigated risk.

Do houses sell regularly in the area and has there been a lot of interest in this one?

I am shocked at the number of people who don't hammer every negative point into a reduction - you have a great chance to ratchet up the future profit on this.
Bear in mind ongoing insurance over 10 yrs sounds like it will add up to £3000 for example so why not think of the factors driving up your overheads here and come up with a discount price?

Pinkangel

Yeah that's a good idea about giving our surveyor a call to get his thoughts on valuation in light of the underpinning.


It is a nice area and there was a lot of interest in this particular house when it came on the market - we went along for a viewing the day after it appeared on Rightmove, believing it would be just us, only to be ushered around the house with a group of other interested buyers. So up until the underpinning info came to light, we felt fairly confident we would have no trouble selling in the future. There is a big new housing development being planned, but it's further away from the town centre, so not as convenient for shops etc, and any house the same size of this one will be considerably more expensive, so again not really an equal match.


We didn't go into this wanting or expecting a bargain - we were perfectly happy to pay the asking price, even though it seemed slightly inflated, because we knew we could add a bit of value to the house (new bathroom, kitchen, flooring etc) and it was exactly what we were looking or. But now I think the only way we could proceed would be at a substantially discounted rate, so that we would have the option of selling cheaply further down the line (if that is what it would take to interest other buyers in an underpinned property). I just have a nasty feeling the sellers aren't even contemplating accepting less than our initial offer, in which case it's game over. We had a phone call today from the estate agent asking if we're ready to go ahead and exchange contracts... They don't seem to grasp the severity of the recent revelation!


Waiting to hear back from the lender anyway to see if the mortgage offer is still valid now that the house is underpinned.

marsman802

Our first property has subsidence issues come to light during the searches.
We walked from that one as I didn't want my first property to have any issues when I come to sell plus didn't want the hassle of finding specialist insurers.
We lost our survey fees and some legal costs and the house ended up being sold for £10k more than we originally offered and had accepted lol - strength of the London market I guess.

We ended up with a property that has no issues and actually just hammered down the price by not being in a chain and the developer we bought off needed the cash to move to the next project.

dacouch

flora48 wrote: »

Regular insurers will insure on underpinning that was done over 25 years ago. In a similar position myself and told that last year. We got regular insurance with Rias.

Currently a very small percentage of regular Insurers will Insure previously underpinned properties. There's no guarantee the Insurers who currently offer cover for underpinned properties will continue offering cover.

I've seen a few companies venture into this market either intentionally or mistakenly (Badly worded questions on applications) and these companies all exited the market leaving their customers seriously inconvenienced.

Whether the new entries into the underpinned market remain in the market depends entirely if they make money on the business. If they don't or their appetite for risk reduces then they could exist the market and this can cause serious problems

Pinkangel

Hi there

Thanks so much to everyone who commented on my post. The advice was so useful in helping us come to a decision. I know it was over a week ago, but if anyone's interested in an update, here it is...

It took almost two weeks to get a verdict from the lender, but they finally came back and said the mortgage offer was still valid as long as we got the underpinning noted on the insurance policy. We got very detailed insurance quotes to check our figures were all correct and we were comparing like for like, and concluded that the extra insurance cost over the next 10 years would be £4,000. So, we went back to the sellers and said we were happy to proceed with the purchase if they would accept £4k less (to account for extra insurance costs) and if they would wait for us to have a structural engineer check the property (us paying). Although we'd had a survey done before the underpinning revelation, we wanted to get it thoroughly checked by an engineer both for our peace of mind and so that we would have something to show future buyers. Obviously didn't want to move in, get the report done when we came to sell and have it reveal something awful.

The sellers came back to us yesterday and said they would not accept anything less than the asking price, and if we didn't exchange contracts by the end of the day yesterday then they were pulling out! Bear in mind there has been no mention of any need for speed during this process - it's an empty house where the old lady living there passed away and the children are now selling to get their inheritance money. We have been moving as quickly as possible anyway, and the only reason for delays has been the sellers' last-minute revelation of important information.

We responded saying we would go ahead and pay the full asking price (just desperate to be done with it) but there was no way we could exchange yesterday, because we would not buy an underpinned house without getting it thoroughly checked. They came back with the new deadline of noon this Friday. We tried our best to meet the deadline, but the soonest an engineer can get to the property is 1pm on Friday, and even if he would give us a brief verbal summary (not ideal) it would still be nearly 5pm before he was done, and then unlikely solicitors could exchange before the weekend.

So, even though we would have been in a position to exchange contracts and complete early next week, and were willing to pay the asking price, the sellers have dropped out because we can't meet their deadline of this Friday. We've tried to be polite and reasonable through the entire process, and are still completely confused as to why the sellers have become so hostile and downright rude in some of the e-mails forwarded to us by the EA. I have to keep reminding myself that they're the ones who lied to us, and we're the ones who should be annoyed!

They have alluded to the fact that they've had interest from a private buyer who is willing to pay more than us, so I do wonder now if they've been looking for a reason to drop out so they can get even more money. Perhaps I'm reading between the lines, but I am otherwise baffled as to why they would pull out with only a week to go before exchange/completion.

Me and my boyfriend are of course gutted that a third house purchase has fallen through, and we've wasted another three months of our lives and God knows how much money in fees etc. I'm trying to tell myself that we've had a lucky escape, and it's all happened for a reason.

Anyway sorry for the rambling post. Venting my anger/bewilderment

jimboban

Bad luck - truly sorry to hear of your troubles. 4th time lucky I hope.

ManofLeisure_2

What bad luck and such a disappointment for you. Fingers crossed that you will find another home soon

Pinkangel

Thanks both


Out of interest, does anyone know whether an estate agent is legally obliged to inform a buyer of underpinning on a property? I seem to remember reading something online about a change in law late last year which meant they had to disclose things like this now, even if they're not directly asked.


The estate agent insisted to us that they hadn't known about the underpinning, which we had to just accept. But they definitely do know about it now. And we've just seen that the house has gone straight back on the market for more money than we were going to pay. I don't want to seem bitter, but I don't see why the sellers should get away with concealing the issue from another potential buyer. I wondered if the estate agent will now have to tell anyone that makes an offer?

Alias_Omega

Hi OP,


If you really want to spite the seller, just post on here in the Praise, Vent & Warning section about the property, maybe throw in the address and it will forever be available to find from Google..

Alias_Omega

An addition...


Sod the damn "other buyers".


Make your -£4000 offer, and let it lay with the Estate Agent. I very much doubt that your seller needs the full amount for the next house, and there is not a buyer.

Instead, make the offer and wait...you can make offers and view other properties...