Underpinned house - HELP!

UpToMyNeckInIt

...I suppose you have to factor all of the following:

1). the underpinning should be some form of reassurance: Far better to know that the Council adopted a belt and braces approach, rather than you find out that the house next door was about to fall over, so they underpinned that one, and not yours, possibly therefore leaving it more at risk.

2). The vendor is bound to be a bit miffed if you throw a spanner into the works at the 11th hour (done it myself, so I'm not implying you did anything bad, as you should not exchange unless you are completely satisfied). Playing devil's advocate though, in a rising housing market, if I was in their shoes, i would have done exactly the same thing, on the basis that the house should easily re-sell soon, and probably for a bit more money. After all, it is not like the vendor needs the cash urgently by the sounds of things.

Granted, the vendor could have been a bit more up-front with you, but then again, if their house was only underpinned as a precautionary measure (after all, their house was not the one on the move), I am uncertain if they categorically had to disclose this. A question for your solicitor perhaps?

3). I suppose you now have to consider if it was worth losing your 'dream home' for £4,000, taking into account all your expenditure to date? (Again, been there, done it, and kicked myself ever since).

These are lessons we all learn though, in the ruthless game of house buying and selling I'm afraid.

Sincerely hope you find something else soon.

Davesnave

It's not all over till the 'other buyer' exchanges,walks away or fails to materialse.

I would say don't do anything hasty, leave your offer on the table and remain civil to everyone, because none of these people is worth raised blood pressure.

Meanwhile, go back to your search. It's amazing how many people trump the property (ies) they've lost in situations like yours.

Who knows, this house might yet come back to you, but if it does, it will be on your terms.

Good luck.

georgiestar

Sorry I cannot offr you advice from a buyers perspective as I rent but I can inform you of the sheer headache and related issues that occur when a property is underpinned as my rental property was underpinned in 2013.

We were originally informed that the undepinning project would take 3 months from January to march. In reality it was not completed until August. It was a complete nightmare in terms of access to the property, noise, dust, workmen making noise at 7am on saturday mornings! It may of course be much more bearable if it is your own property and is adding to the future value and resale potential of the property.

Related to the original subsidence we have had two incidences of collapsed drains which blocked and caused the sewage to come through our bath!
Hope everything works out for you.

Pinkangel

Thanks for comments everyone. Unfortunately it is definitely over now because we've had the official letter from the estate agent and have asked our solicitor to close the file.


I just wanted to set the record straight though UpToMyNeckInIt - we didn't lose the house because we weren't willing to pay the asking price, we lost it because the sellers wouldn't wait one more week for us to get a structural engineer check. If we lived in London then of course we would have suspected they'd just drop out and put house back on the market for more money. But we actually live in a quiet part of the country where the housing market hasn't really picked up. Things are pretty stagnant at the moment - houses appearing online but not much is shifting. This particular house is lovely, so I suspect it will still get snapped up (assuming the seller conveniently forgets to mention the underpinning to interested buyers). But there was nothing in the market to suggest this would have happened.


Just because the sellers acted within their rights and didn't break any laws, and just because some other sellers would have done the same thing, does not make it morally ok. I realise morals go out of the window when it comes to buying and selling houses, but I hold out hope that karma will catch up with them and bite them on the !!! one day!