Subsidence Advice

Tuscan9

My partner and I put in an offer for a 1968 semi-detached in a nice area and had it accepted. However since paying for local searches etc. It has come to light that the house suffered from fairly minor subsidence 9 years ago, with cracks in the 80's single story utility room extension due to root damage/clay shrinkage, but nothing apparent since, The insurance claim was successful and all building work carried out, offending tree removed and engineer report in order and handed over to us, with all work carried out professionally with full costs.

Our concern now however is insurance and resalability. After phoning about, barely any mainstream insurers would cover us, but Admiral seem to be offering a reasonable quote if full, current engineers report is carried out. However it seems we are at the mercy of insurers premiums in future. It'd be great to have advice from anyone with experience of potentially rising insurance premiums in a similar situation? Also anyone who could offer any further advice (resalability etc.) would be very much appreciated. We've spent nearly a grand on fees so far, but don't want to be walking into a whole host of other serious problems so could still walk away. Thanks!

dc197

There are three issues, as you have already identified.
Is the problem ongoing? Only time and an expert can say. If caused by trees which have gone, likely it's cured.
Resale. Other people will be terrified by the dreaded S word and will run. Others will be cautious like you. Don't worry too much.
Insurance. This is where you are at the mercy of corporations. Do not use the highstreet or mainstream guys. They often have a single yes/no question in their proposal and if you say yes they don't want you. Instead use a broker. We used Ensleigh brokers, not Insurers, who found a policy with Midas. They will treat historical issues over X years ago as if they didn't happen.
Each underwriter has a different value for X but I don't know of any who are less than 9. So your first year's premium will be high.
Finally there is an agent who will send an engineer round for 150 quid and if there are no ongoing issues they will find you an insurer or refund you. Someone else, or Google, will know the name.

ruggedtoast

Had one with a problem like this in a desirable area, but rather toppy in price and they wouldn't negotiate.

Our solicitor decided not to run any searches until just before exchange when planning permission for underpinning next door came to light. As it was a semi, next door's underpinning and the historic movement on "our" side posed combined to present a bit of a problem.

We pulled out and it didn't sell for years, despite a 20% price drop.

There is no easy answer unfortunately. In our case the sellers and their agent lied to us repeatedly which poisoned the relationship from the get go and made me less inclined to proceed.

If your sellers are reasonably transparent and helpful, you are confident in the structural integrity of the property, and the subsidence in taken into account in the price then there is no reason particularly to worry.

You will always be quite limited in insurers but life has its difficulties doesn't it?

glasgowdan

I simply wouldn't even consider this house. A lot of future buyers will be exactly the same.

Doozergirl

We're talking about a single storey utility room?

Presumably it wasn't well built in the first place. Interesting that people can't see through anything other than the S word, even though it didn't affect the main house.

Is the utility of great quality/value now?

I would use a broker for insurance and I wouldn't be worried either that something probably poorly tacked on to the house had issues, especially if they had been addressed.

Worst case scenario would be to remove the offending extension as the house has never actually suffered from subsidence. I'm not sure I'd see the point though, unless it's a mess.

Tuscan9

Thanks for the replies everyone. As far as we can tell the extension has been sound since the tree root problem 9 years ago, but I'd hope the full engineers report we'd need for insurance purposes would confirm this. As we have all the paperwork from the claim and the seller hasn't tried to "cover" the issue up (just didn't tell us about it before we started searches etc), the situation isn't too bad, I just get the feeling the insurance premiums will be our main issue. Doozergirl, it is only the single story utility room and you're correct, it doesn't have very deep foundations (800mm) and isn't of the same quality as the house. Now however, we can't see any signs of damage and it looks quite neat to me.

We're swaying towards walking away unless we're given a discount on the price right now...

nubbins

I would say don't buy it unless its "the one" and you are going to stay there for years and the price you are getting it for reflects the higher insurance and possible reduced sale price when you come to sell. I was in exactly the same situation a few years ago and wanted 10% off but the owners would not budge, they did sell in the end for a bit better than the 10% drop I offered but that was a while later.

Would you buy a CAT C car.

dacouch

What happened to the tree that caused the damage and are there any others of the same type near the house?

Tuscan9

The willow tree that caused was removed with the subsidence damage (9 years ago). There are other, not so invasive trees near the house but I suppose this is a small concern...

westernpromise

What would worry me about this is that once you're with Admiral you're with them indefinitely. If there were a recurrence of the problem and you'd changed insurer every 12 months in pursuit of the cheapest premium, you risk the current insurer deciding that the problem actually arose 4 years ago and the then insurer was the one who should have paid.

We have this situation with the house we have. There has never been subsidence but the area is prone to it owing to trees and clay. So when we bought we continued to insure it with the same company as the previous owners, so that no such attempt at evading any claim can happen.

Tuscan9

Westernpromise, I wasn't aware swapping insurers like this could be an issue. Would it not just be the case that the current insurer would have to fork out? Is this common in the home/subsidence insurance market? As first time buyers we're new to all this