House-buying process - important structural engineer report - not provided until final hurdle

yodiyo

Hello - need to make this quick, so long story short:

• we're in final leg to buy a house with discussion on exchange and completion date
• we had a building survey done that raised a few issues, the main one being with the roof and damp, which led us to getting a price reduction. The report does not mention structural concerns like movement or subsidence
• jump forward a couple of months and the solicitor has now sent us all the reports, including the for the first time a structural engineer's report that the vendors had to do for their mortgage when they bought the place 7 years ago
• this report mentions cracks and sloping floors - nothing major, we're talking 10-15mm - and concludes that there has been "historical foundation settlement" and that it is non-progressive
• bit of a shock to see this report at this stage of the process - I think the solicitor received it 2 months before but was getting all the paperwork together to send in one go
• we talk to a few people and read lots of articles and it's an old house, circa 1890, so we think we can live with it
• however, it's time to look at building insurance and that's when it gets difficult - seems any mention of movement leads to questions on subsidence and the options seem to get quite limited and a bit pricier
• we have sent the engineer's report to one insurer who are running it by their underwriters
• in the meantime, we are stressing out and wondering if we're finding it difficult now, it may be difficult for us to sell when it comes to it (this is important for us)
• I manage to get hold of the original engineer and talk through their survey - very helpful, though not reassuring. He says the vendors should have done an update report, that the area is known for subsidence and that further movement might be a concern
• now debating whether to go ahead even if we manage to get affordable building insurance

It feels like there are a few wrongs here - the vendors not doing an update, the survey not picking anything up, the solicitor not sharing the report - as FTB, I just don't know what we should've done differently - possibly ask more questions? Anyway, I've read a lot of articles on here about historical movement, subsidence and insurance, so thought I'd share this experience and get some feedback - please be kind. Thank you in advance.

user1977

Historic, non-progressive settlement (not subsidence) is pretty standard for older properties - shouldn't be something insurers will care about (or even need declared).

yodiyo

user1977 said:

Historic, non-progressive settlement (not subsidence) is pretty standard for older properties - shouldn't be something insurers will care about (or even need declared).

I do agree with you and maybe we shouldn't have mentioned it when talking to the insurance agent, but when we did - even asserting that it was historic non-progressive movement - they did raise it as an issue and it became something to worry about. 

The underwriters have now come back to say they will cover the house and I think we're going ahead, just having a fear that this may be a negative impact on being able to sell the house in a few years.

user1977

yodiyo said:

user1977 said:

Historic, non-progressive settlement (not subsidence) is pretty standard for older properties - shouldn't be something insurers will care about (or even need declared).

I do agree with you and maybe we shouldn't have mentioned it when talking to the insurance agent, but when we did - even asserting that it was historic non-progressive movement - they did raise it as an issue and it became something to worry about. 

The underwriters have now come back to say they will cover the house and I think we're going ahead, just having a fear that this may be a negative impact on being able to sell the house in a few years.

No. Completely standard for older properties, and not something insurers even ask about. Unfortunately you risk causing confusion if you start blabbering about things they haven't asked about.