Buying/insuring an underpinned house?

unusualname

Hello all,

I am in an absolute quandary. The bottom line is, should I purchase an underpinned house, considering the potentially higher insurance and issues selling it on in the future?

The details are thus:
I had my mortgage agreed and had an offer accepted on a house.
My solicitor's checks returned some stabilization works that were done 20 years ago. The work entailed underpinning of the attached garage, and was completed under the original house guarantee, and fully checked by NHBC to their complete satisfaction. The builder also provided a 10 year guarantee on the work. There have been no further issues with the property since then.

So, my solicitor, mortgage lender and valuer were all happy with the supporting documents and we were good to go. But, I have tried to get the house insured today, in time for exchange, and some insurers have flat out refused to insure the property based on the work done. Many other policies have "assumptions" I must abide by, such as the policy assumes no history of underpinning/subsidence etc.

So, am I screwed? Is this just quite common and I should suck it up, shop around for an insurer that will cover it and get on with it; or should I pull out while I still can?

I've read a few articles online where the general response is to AVOID!

Please, please, please, I would very much like to hear your opinions on how I should proceed.

Thank you very much for reading.

ManuelG

AXA and Legal and General have time limited questions about underpinning, so you can get insurance there.

The likes of Adrian Flux offer specialist insurance for underpinned properties.

As a purely personal view, I find it absolutely crazy that something done 20 years ago, with no movement since is an issue. It wouldn't stop me buying a house, as surely repair work is good rather than the unknown... but if I were intending to move relatively soon (i.e. five years or so) I might pause for thought, as I do seem to be in the minority in not being bothered. So even if a long term buy, I'd want the price to reflect the fact I was the minority...

That said, if your lender is happy, that's one hurdle out the way.

unusualname

ManuelG,

Thank you ever so much for your reply.
I, myself, as well as everyone I have discussed with share the same opinion, that, given the facts, this should really be a non-issue. But it seems that some insurers simply consider the house uninsurable with this on its record.

Though, on the other hand, your insurer suggestions have definitely put a positive spin on it for me. AXA do indeed appear to only care about issues taking place in the last 10 years, and the price they quoted seems extremely reasonable, all things considered. Thank you once again for those pointers.

dacouch

Have you tried the current owners Insurers as this is the standard and safest method in your position.

Lord_Baltimore

It's tempting to think of underpinning done 20 years ago as now historic. Conversely, it could be argued that the stablilization is now 20 years old and who knows what is going on underground. A bore hole might reveal slow but persistent water erosion or whatever. I wouldn't rely on insurance being honoured.

unusualname

The current owners have their insurance with Halifax, as this is who their mortgage was originally with.

Admittedly, I do have a suspicion that the owners never declared this work to them. The work was done 2 years prior to them moving in. The reason I suspect this, is because they did not declare the work to anyone when trying to sell the house, it just came up during solicitor checks. When confronted about it, they just said that as it was so long ago, they completely forgot about it and thought it wasn't worth mentioning!

Personally, I think if I had been paying a higher insurance rate for 18 years of living in a house I'd be fully aware of why. Understandably, it kind of gives me the jitters, but at the same time, when there has been no re-occurrence of the problem, then I suppose I could understand it being forgotten about.

nubbins

I had this on a house I was going to buy last year, the house was nice, lovely gardens, loads of room, good location etc etc. After I started the ball rolling the owner started mentioning drains and roots but never the S word. As I dug a bit further I found out the house had tens of thousands of work done through insurance for subsidence 7 years earlier, I phoned the insurance company and they told me the premiums would be approx £100 a month. After doing loads of research I realised that living in the house would probably be ok as the work had been done to a good standard BUT you will always be living in something that has a blemish against it. The house was on for 465k and I wanted it for somewhere between 410-420 to take into account the high premiums and future resale problems. The seller wasn't having any of it and I walked away, I have just seen on land registry sold prices he got 440k in the end so it did sell and he was right to stick to his guns.

For me unless its a forever home then I would be inclined to walk away. If you are in a high demand area, you can get a good discount, you have all the paper work of the work done then I might consider it but it has to be at the right price.

arbrighton

Oh bought an underpinned house in the early days of our relationship- it wasn't really disclosed at the time of offer but when it came to light during conveyancing, he almost pulled out and the purchase price dropped. He took on the insurance with whoever was insuring it at the time, who were then bought by Aviva.

We had several disagreements with EA when it came to selling as we wanted to be completely upfront about it so buyers could bear it in mind for offering etc. The first offer got to the point of exchange, knowing there had been 'works' which had been signed off then pulled out due to some apparently insane insurance quotes (about 3x what we were paying!).

Second offer were cash buyers, and we INSISTED the EA fully disclosed to them. They decided this was ok, didn't have a survey done (mad, clearly) and then just before exchange, claimed insurance was too expensive and tried to drop the price by the equivalent of 10 years worth of the difference in insurance. Fortunately it did go through after some negotiation

ManuelG

arbrighton wrote: »

didn't have a survey done (mad, clearly)

_pale_

Not just mad, but a special kind of mad!

arbrighton

ManuelG wrote: »

_pale_

Not just mad, but a special kind of mad!

Apparently the logic was that everything must be ok if we'd told them about the underpinning- it was the whole row of houses anyway

ManuelG

arbrighton wrote: »

Apparently the logic was that everything must be ok if we'd told them about the underpinning- it was the whole row of houses anyway

Hmmm.

I confess to buying an underpinned house. I confess to being told up front, which was nice...

I still made sure I had the survey done, mind you, even though all seemed in order!

Imagine the comeback if something *was* amiss...