Buying house with retaining wall

SavingisFun

Hello MSE'ers

Looking at a house at the moment, fairly new (1 year old) and still under warranty. Essentially, I have one concern - its border is a retaining wall.

The house is detached, next door (also detached) is set much lower than the house I'm viewing, so there is (what appears to be) a retaining wall between the two properties. The retaining wall on my side, is about 6 feet high, on the neighbouring side is about 18ft high!

The house I'm interested in owns the wall - which could be an important point.

The wall itself is at least 100 years old - I'm unsure what this well-known house builder may have done to it...I'm guessing very little as the wall appears to be untouched. It's made entirely out of red brick.

My concerns are that the wall could fall down on to next doors drive damaging their cars or property. Worse, it could fall and result in my house falling down!

Has anyone got any experience with owning a retaining wall that shares a border with your neighbour? Also, what can be done to prevent a situation that involves me shelling out £00,000s in the event of a disaster?

cooltt

SavingisFun wrote: »

Hello MSE'ers

Looking at a house at the moment, fairly new (1 year old) and still under warranty. Essentially, I have one concern - its border is a retaining wall.

The house is detached, next door (also detached) is set much lower than the house I'm viewing, so there is (what appears to be) a retaining wall between the two properties. The retaining wall on my side, is about 6 feet high, on the neighbouring side is about 18ft high!

The house I'm interested in owns the wall - which could be an important point.

The wall itself is at least 100 years old - I'm unsure what this well-known house builder may have done to it...I'm guessing very little as the wall appears to be untouched. It's made entirely out of red brick.

My concerns are that the wall could fall down on to next doors drive damaging their cars or property. Worse, it could fall and result in my house falling down!

Has anyone got any experience with owning a retaining wall that shares a border with your neighbour? Also, what can be done to prevent a situation that involves me shelling out £00,000s in the event of a disaster?

If it's yours then you're responsible for it's maintenance. Get a local builder to inspect it. If it's lasted for 100 years without no obvious signs of recent movement, it's going to last 100 more.

SavingisFun

hi cooltt, thanks for your response.

I think the wall is listed too. Probably 18ft high by 32feet wide.

G_M

Do you mean it's a party wall?

If there's a 'disaster' you make a claim of your insurance. That's what it's for.

moneyistooshorttomention

Think I'd be checking in OP's position whether insurance companies would be likely to have a get-out clause there in any cover document absolving them from work that they could say was down to wall-owner not doing appropriate maintenance work on it (whatever that might be).

Sort of the equivalent of I would be wondering if I could have managed to claim if the roof on my last house (Victorian terrace) had gone and collapsed on me before I swopped it to a new one. On the other hand - if it had collapsed on me (bad gales/whatever) after I had replaced it (ie knew it was new roof) then I would have expected them to pay up.

Must admit I'd think twice/indeed thrice about buying a house that had responsibility for a wall like that. I'd not be surprised if, for instance, the whole wall needed replacing for some reason it came to tens of thousands of £s (big wall and Listed).

martindow

I think I would get a structural engineer in as well. This wall could be very expensive to repair and maintain if it's listed.

AdrianC

SavingisFun wrote: »

I think the wall is listed too.

Unlikely, but easy to be certain either way.

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/

Davesnave

Walls can certainly have protected status, or appear to have, through association with listed property. We walked away from the chance to buy a lovely walled garden in the eartly noughties, because it only had wheelbarrow access and we considered it unlikely we'd gain permission for a small vehicle entrance, at least without a fight. Once Highways are involved....

Mind you, the eventual purchaser had no qualms whatever and set about the wall with a digger:

https://www.instantstreetview.com/@50.719666,-3.217667,221.75h,-14.19p,1z

And it didn't stop there....

https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/caseDetails.do?caseType=Property&keyVal=KZ66HBGH02R02

Hasn't worked out for him so far, though!

EDIT: I can't seem to make the above link take you directly there. You have to put 'Walled Garden Church Street Sidbury' into the search function.

Lunchbox

I have relatives who have a retaining wall that's around 40 years old and is probably 10ft high and holds back a sloping garden. It appeared fine until they noticed some large cracks developing last year. A structural engineer has looked at it and says it's likely that very wet weather over the last few years has caused movement of the ground it's holding back. It needs some extensive works doing to stop it collapsing - around £10k and not covered by insurance because it's been caused by gradual movement and not catastrophic event.

The presence of the wall itself wouldn't put me off, but I'd definitely get a report on it from a structural engineer or similar.

Davesnave

It occurs to me that if there has been recent building work in the area, perhaps including the removal of trees and the concentration of run-off through the creation of soak-aways, the ground conditions could have altered considerably. This might eventually have a negative impact on a wall that has previously stood the test of time.

Definitely a job for a structural engineer, and maybe others, depending upon the exact history and what's happened in the last few years.

A formal report would surely helpwith insurance too, if favourable.

moneyistooshorttomention

So I guess it's emerging that a possible way forward on this is to get that structural engineer report (and...yep...it would be useful in case of wishing to make insurance claim).

Followed by figuring out the possible cost of any work the buyer of that house would have to do (directly - by paying for it themselves OR indirectly - in increased insurance premiums) and knock that amount off what you would be prepared to pay for the house.

Seems logical to me that if potential Retaining Wall Cost is, say, £30,000 you turn round to vendor of house and go "All else being equal I'd pay you £300,000 for that house. BUT - in view of the retaining wall situation - then I'll offer you £270,000 for the house". That way - the vendor covers the cost of any work that would be necessary.

EDIT; At a very rough guesstimate - a 2012 thread (Mumsnet in this case) seemed to reckon on £200-£500 (plus VAT) as cost of structural engineer visit.