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To Buy or Not to Buy - Underpinned
Cassie_kat
Posts: 1 Newbie
Hi All,
This is my first time posting so bear with me but really looking for advice...
We fell in love witha house, about 6 weeks ago before we put ours on the market. We looked round, it needs loads of work but thats what we were after and it had great potential. However looking round the garden (it's on a slope and trees & drain right next to the borders) i noticed the retaining wall in the ground was cracked and leaning outwards, the drain in the garden was sunk and patio buckled. I raised this with the estate agents when we put in an offer and asked if they knew of any subsidence and that i thought this would be an issue on a survey. We put in an offer which was rejected and frankly they were dillusional on what they wanted.
Anyway fast forward 5 weeks we sold our house in one viewing and thought we would try our luck again. Second offer accepted as they had realised they were expecting too much.
Well i ran some building control and planning searches and what comes up but an underpinning passed by Building control.
It was only 7 years ago, Estate Agents and us think they were very dishonest however they are supplying the sign off papers. I am wary due to the state of the drain and patio (they also claim lots of houses in the street are underpinned, however no other completions on th building control website).
So ... We still love this house but i do not know if we are being overcautious, it was passed but their reluctance to declare work worries me even though we raised Subsidence questions early on.
What would other people do, this is only our second house, we are fairly work savvy (My father is a builder and we have renovated our last property throughout and we had all sorts off problems) but i'm not sure how much of an issue this should be....
Well thanks for reading if you got this far through the rambles.....:D i just hope i haven't bored you ...
This is my first time posting so bear with me but really looking for advice...
We fell in love witha house, about 6 weeks ago before we put ours on the market. We looked round, it needs loads of work but thats what we were after and it had great potential. However looking round the garden (it's on a slope and trees & drain right next to the borders) i noticed the retaining wall in the ground was cracked and leaning outwards, the drain in the garden was sunk and patio buckled. I raised this with the estate agents when we put in an offer and asked if they knew of any subsidence and that i thought this would be an issue on a survey. We put in an offer which was rejected and frankly they were dillusional on what they wanted.
Anyway fast forward 5 weeks we sold our house in one viewing and thought we would try our luck again. Second offer accepted as they had realised they were expecting too much.
Well i ran some building control and planning searches and what comes up but an underpinning passed by Building control.
It was only 7 years ago, Estate Agents and us think they were very dishonest however they are supplying the sign off papers. I am wary due to the state of the drain and patio (they also claim lots of houses in the street are underpinned, however no other completions on th building control website).
So ... We still love this house but i do not know if we are being overcautious, it was passed but their reluctance to declare work worries me even though we raised Subsidence questions early on.
What would other people do, this is only our second house, we are fairly work savvy (My father is a builder and we have renovated our last property throughout and we had all sorts off problems) but i'm not sure how much of an issue this should be....
Well thanks for reading if you got this far through the rambles.....:D i just hope i haven't bored you ...
0
Comments
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If the works are signed off as correct and it can be proved I don't understand the concern? Surely it is better to be correctly underpinned than not and have to deal with issues like that yourself. It seems to me house buying and selling brings out the best and worst in people.
I understand your worry but if the work are signed off and your surveyor found nothing screamingly obvious you are taking the same risk as everyone else when buying a house.0 -
There may be implications for your mortgage and I would also expect insurance premiums to be raised for this property. Lastly, it may make it difficult to sell on in the future0
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Houses can have many "issues" which affect their saleability and selling price.
Underpinning is probably one of them. So you should expect the house to be a bit cheaper than similar houses without any "issues", and you should expect to sell it a bit cheaper, when the time comes.
Insurance is likely to be more expensive, but may get cheaper over time. (e.g. I think at least one big insurer offers 'normal terms' if there have been no problems for 10 years.)
But FWIW, a seller once lied to me about a subsidence history, and I later found out he had lied to his insurer as well. As a result of lying to his insurer, things got very messy.0 -
The only way you'll know for certain is by getting a full structural survey done on the place, buy you'll have to be prepared to pay for the survey upfront, and be happy that the costs may have to be written off (ie are lost) if it reveals problems that are too expensive for you to rectify, or even prevent you from buying it in the first place.
On the upside, if the survey does give it a clean(-ish) bill of health, you can use those results to allay the fears of anyone you are looking to sell it to in the future and who uncover what you've found.0 -
Cassie_kat wrote: »
What would other people do, this is only our second house, we are fairly work savvy (My father is a builder and we have renovated our last property throughout and we had all sorts off problems) but i'm not sure how much of an issue this should be....
...
If your father is a builder, perhaps he would be able to give you his considered opinion upon the matter?0
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