Historic Underpinning

chimchiminey

Hi,

Hope you can help, please!

My mum is in the process of trying to sell her house. It has been on the market for some time. She moved into it in 2003. One of the past potential buyers search revealed that the house had been underpinned in 1991, hence being on sale for a while. When my parents bought the property, they were not aware of this.

Now that we are trying to sell, any potential buyers are asking for the guarantee. However, we do not have one! We got a copy of the sign off from the local council, but this does not advise who completed this and what work was done.

We have called the solicitors my parents used when buying the house to see if they have info. They are looking into their archives. I have even messaged who I think might be there previous owner on Facebook, but I don't know it is them! They have not replied, lol.

We have sought advice on a previous thread, but would like to know if anyone has any more ideas..

Is there anything else we can do to find out who did the work, so that we can find out details? Historic insurers of the property? From what I can see on the internet, the house should have been insured with the previous owners insurance company due to the underpinning but as my parents were not aware of the work, they used their own insurers.

Any potential buyers obviously want to know what work was done and a guarantee.

Please help if you cam,

Thank you :-)

Norman_Castle

As it was done 25 years ago its unlikely a guarantee would be valid.

chimchiminey

Hi, Thank you.

Thats what I was thinking, but people want to know what work was completed and are still after the guarantee. They are not buying because of this.

Thanks
L

Davesnave

People will buy at the right price.

You may have to consider what sort of discount to offer, as although attitudes to underpinning are mostly illogical, most buyers will want a reduction on an underpinned house. They will look to the future and the difficulties of selling it themselves.

When my daughter recently bought a property, structurally refurbished and underpinned in the 90s, she had all the paperwork that went with that, although there may have been no live guarantees by then.

Allowing for some cosmetics, she paid roughly 15% less than the going rate for similar houses in that area. The house attracted her mainly because she couldn't stretch to the others in that desirable area.

chimchiminey

Thank you.

We have reduced the price and although we have lots of offers, they pull out when the search is done. With the last buyer, we instructed the estate agents to notify the buyer when there was an offer, which they claim they did, only for him to pull out when searches came. They told us it was because there was no guarantee. The buyer was a property developer, so we didn't get it really. We always suggest they make an offer, but no one has.

I will phone the estate agents from 25 years ago tomorrow to see if they may have anything on archive, you never know lol

Thanks for your help.
L