History of Subsidence – No Certificate of Structural Adequacy

smokeybubbles

Hi all,

Hope someone can point me the right direction as I am interested in a local property to me and have viewed a couple of times. The agents and owner have been upfront that back in the 1980’s the property suffered from a cracked drain which caused the side of the building to suffer subsidence which they tell me has been rectified; however, it seems the documentation I have had back is not 100% in order.

With research it appears the owners should have a certificate proving the work was undertaken, but the current owners only purchased the building in 2000 and they have checked their records and can locate no such document (work was undertaken in 1985). The owners have produced a structural report undertaken in March this year, paid for by the owner, which confirms the works were undertaken and the building is stable with no signs of movement in the 32 years since the repair – is this sufficient to a mortgage/ insurance company?

I am going to ask for a copy of their insurance certificate to ensure the building is insurable and will discuss with my mortgage broker, however my question is should I be taking any other steps? i.e. Can you ask for a full survey before making an offer?

If anyone has had experience of any of the above I would be grateful if you could share your thoughts as I have never dealt with a property with this kind of history and I am unsure how this could affect the current/resale value.

Doozergirl

1985 Pre-dates the current Building Regulations. There wouldn't be a record of any certificate if one were ever produced.

A current structural report saying that the house is stable is far better than any completion certificate from over 30 years ago anyway! It clearly shows that the structure is stable.

smokeybubbles

Thanks Doozergirl,

When dealing with so much money I just want to ensure everything is in order – or it will be me suffering the pain when I go to sell.

I think I will still request the insurance certificate and undertake a full survey from my own coin for peace of mind. I would think the mortgage company will be pretty hot on this so between all of us I am sure we can satisfy ourselves that everything is in order.

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Get your own survey as said above.

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Also get quotes for insurance, you will probably have to go through a broker to do this and you should expect both the premium and the subsidence excess to be higher than normal.[/FONT]

[Deleted User]

I bought a house which suffered subsidence in the 1980's due to mining and was rectified at the time. Our insurance company only wanted to know about subsidence in the last ten years and confirmed in writing when I queried this that they didn't need to know about anything before this and it wouldn't affect a claim for it if needed.
I don't pay more then average for insurance.
The mortgage provider was informed by the solicitor but again didn't affect anything.
The survey pointed it out and suggested a full structural engineers survey but we were satisfied with what we knew about the area and other houses that were also affected by the mines.

Returntosender

We're currently purchasing a house with historical subsidence - but we made sure to have a full structural survey after we put our offer on. This survey also highlighted issues with the house that meant we had to lower our offer - we saved ourselves a few grand doing so. I would highly recommend a full structural survey on any building that has current or historical subsidence, just to be safe.