Buying a house with a garage wall underpinned

Emily2323

I am buying a house in SE London built in the 1970s where a garage wall was underpinned back in 1987, buildings regs signed it off as completed and the works were guaranteed for 20 years. We have had a full buildings survey and the surveyor was surprised to learn that there was underpinning as there are no signs of ground movement and doesn't think subsidence will have caused it unless it was historic tree roots or a leaking drain problem and could have been because garages were not built with deep foundations back in the 70's. We are waiting for the seller to find the original report on what caused the movement. We want to develop the area where the garage is and so will need to knock it down and put in new foundations in any event. The only doubt in my mind whether this will cause a problem in future sales - does anyone have experience in selling houses where an outbuilding wall was underpinned?

davidmcn

The fact that a wall which by then will no longer exist had been underpinned doesn't seem relevant for future sales.

greatcrested

Underpinned 30 years ago. No current sign of movement. What exactly are you worried about?

Planning to remove the wall and replace with new foundations and new wall(s). What exactly are you worried about?

Emily2323

Our solicitor worried me the most, called me up making a fuss saying it will be an issue when we come to sell and then I looked on several posts on here about underpinning and some of the comments there suggests it will be an issue.

AdrianC

Emily2323 said:

Our solicitor worried me the most, called me up making a fuss saying it will be an issue when we come to sell and then I looked on several posts on here about underpinning and some of the comments there suggests it will be an issue.

Underpinning is literally just putting better foundations under an existing structure, because the original ones weren't adequate.

If you're demolishing that wall and building something else, then you'll simply build with adequate foundations from the start. What was there before is completely irrelevant.

Slinky

From my understanding (owning a property where the extension was underpinned about 30 years ago), there will always be a marker on the insurance files to say that underpinning has taken place at that address. That doesn't appear to go away even if the part of the property is no longer there as I understand it.  It may limit the number of insurers willing to take the property on and you may be better advised to go via a broker who can find a better option for you, but it will be insurable.  We are able to get buildings insurance at reasonable rates and with the normal £1000 excess because of the length of time that has elapsed since the underpinning. We don't know what the source of the problem was as it was a probate property and the vendor (son) claimed not to know the cause.

ProDave

The person that WILL want to know about the under pinning is the structural engineer that designs the foundations for the new building.