Help! - Crack in external wall outside home

Jainar

Hi again.

I have created a new thread because my contractor who has been appointed to do a new en-suite bathroom spotted an external crack which my surveyor missed.

I have completed on the property and paid for a full Building Survey i.e. level 3 from a RICS qualified surveyor.

The Building Survey did not call out this crack which runs from the top of the building to the bottom and said that there was no sign of current ongoing movement.

I have naturally emailed the surveyor and sent him pictures and now he is coming to have a look at the crack this week.

However, the issue I have is that even if the surveyor says everything is fine, the fact that he missed it and I am a bit paranoid, I suspect he may give this a pass because he is on the hook as he missed it!

If he had identified this particular issue I would have raised with the seller and asked if they had any knowledge of subsidence issues, tried negotiating this major issue, possibly walked away depending on the response! What should be next steps on this? I am tempted to get another surveyor out just to get peace of mind and get this surveyor to pay for it. And clearly if there are more issues then I will have to claim from the surveyor... Any ideas welcome.

Doozergirl

Can you show us a photo of this crack?

The surveyor isn't going to pretend it's fine if it isn't. It will be easier and cheaper to remedy now than in the future - that's if it is a problem.

Jainar

Photos here. Concern is that some of the concrete repointing has since fallen out

Jainar

Please see photos. I think concern is that the previous owner repointed these but the pointing has either come off or also cracked thru...

https://ibb.co/CbNv9tp
https://ibb.co/JstJC9t
https://ibb.co/NYYbXKS

MovingForwards

Did you not notice the pointing in that section was a lot newer than the rest of it when viewing the property?

To me that would have pointed to a previous issue.

Jainar

I had not unfortunately. I've never lived in a Victorian property before so I was looking to get expertise of a surveyor but he's missed it too...

TELLIT01

The fact that the new pointing has cracked is certainly cause for concern, more so if the surveyor comes back and says the crack wasn't present when he did his survey.

Jainar

Ok now this is really concerning me. I've contacted the surveyor and he's coming to have a look at it.

Its highly unlikely that a crack of this size would have suddenly appeared since he did his survey about a month ago?

FreeBear

TELLIT01 wrote: »

The fact that the new pointing has cracked is certainly cause for concern

Looks as if a cement mortar has been used. In places, it has fallen out, and is cracking up in other places. Who ever did the work should have used a pure lime mortar which would have been more forgiving.

Looking at the pointing in relation to the down pipe, I wonder if there had been problems with the down pipe & drainage that caused some movement. It might be, a leaking down pipe had caused the mortar in the joints to deteriorate in line with the pipe, and the repointing was done to stop penetrating damp.

Is there a corresponding crack on the internal side of this wall ?

Doozergirl

That mortar is nice and fresh. Is there any of it on the ground? The surveyor should have mentioned it even if the pointing was intact at that point. Any pictures from Rightmove or the survey?

What condition was the house in when you bought it and how long had the previous owners been there?

I don't think that you should worry that the surveyor will try to wriggle out of this. It needs a structural engineer to look at it anyway as the surveyor isn't qualified, so they will refer it on.

Thankfully you chose the best survey you could, so there is very little wriggle room for them.

I agree that the issue is likely to be the downpipe. Cracks have a habit of pointing to the source of weakness.

Jainar

Unfortunately there were no pictures in the survey it was all in prose. The survey didn’t mention any issue with this crack although it should have.

The house was in a good condition and the survey reflected that. Although I am suspecting that the previous owners may have redecorated to paper over issues - they apparently were not staying in the home for the past 1 year or so, they bought it in 2012. There are some damp areas that I need to resolve but I thought this could be solved as this is an old house. This crack is a potential structural issue and is super concerning for me.