Bought house without survey - now possible subsidence

Tanya2711

I bought my house as a naive first time buyer in 2009, and still live in the property now. I wasn't pushed to get a survey, so didn't.
Fast forward to now, and I have possible subsidence - a bowed wall, cracks internally and externally.  The insurance company are sending someone out, but what I'd like to know is: will not having a survey done affect the insurance covering the work. Will it be left to me to sort out? 
Thanks 

Alter_ego

No, if you are insured for subsidence they will cover it, subject to any excess on the policy.

foxy-stoat

Even if you had a clean survey a lot can happen in 12 years so I wouldn't worry about it.  Insurers will sort it out.

theartfullodger

Read conditions of insurance carefully.  If it said, eg, cover if previous survey showed no subsidence, then you ain't covered 

steve866

theartfullodger said:

Read conditions of insurance carefully.  If it said, eg, cover if previous survey showed no subsidence, then you ain't covered 

Doesn’t this make the OP better off then?

user1977

theartfullodger said:

Read conditions of insurance carefully.  If it said, eg, cover if previous survey showed no subsidence, then you ain't covered 

I've never seen an insurer require you to have had a survey. Have you?

Tanya2711

theartfullodger said:

Read conditions of insurance carefully.  If it said, eg, cover if previous survey showed no subsidence, then you ain't covered 

in the exclusions it says nothing about any survey
One area to highlight says they will not cover if: loss or damage was caused before this policy started.
My policy with this company started in June 2020 for a year and because the renewal was cheap I took it out again from this June.

However the insurers have asked to see the survey. So I'll say i'll be truthful and didn't get one as wasn't pushed to.
Thoughts please?

Thrugelmir

As the purchaser onus is on you to perform your own due diligence.  In the same way as buying a second hand car. Would you buy one without a full service history?  

steadfast123

I (foolishly) bought a house in 2007 with no proper survey. Mortgage survey said signs of long standing non-progressive movement. It turned out it was progressive. About 6 years later I made an insurance claim, they investigated the cause and basically repaired it cosmetically. I did have to provide a copy of the mortgage survey at the time of taking out the insurance to show it said long standing and non progressive. Though if you had no idea of any history of movement then that wouldn’t have been an issue for you 

hazyjo

Nobody will usually 'push' you to do a survey (unless they can make money on it), it's just part of your own due diligence.

p00hsticks

Tanya2711 said:

theartfullodger said:

Read conditions of insurance carefully.  If it said, eg, cover if previous survey showed no subsidence, then you ain't covered 

However the insurers have asked to see the survey. So I'll say i'll be truthful and didn't get one as wasn't pushed to.
Thoughts please?

As a FTB, I'm presuming you had to get a mortgage for the property ? In which case I suspect that as part of the lending criteria at the time you will probably have paid for some sort of survey to be carried out for the lender even if it was a very basic valuation type one.

If you still have all the paperwork from the purchase I'd suggest going through it to make sure before you say that none was done.