Is this underpinning?

shanclover

I'm completely clueless so hope can seek some advice here.

So we want to buy this house and were talking to a neighbor. He said the house we were interested in was underpinned 40 years ago whereas the owner said he was not aware of this ( only owning the house since 2019). The owner didn't have the building control certificate for their garage conversion and to get that done retrospectively, he had to dig out a hole in front of the garage for inspection. From the photos, would anyone be able to tell if the house was underpinned before? Many thanks!

FreeBear

Need a wider shot showing the concrete in context with ground levels & brickwork.

shanclover

FreeBear said:

Need a wider shot showing the concrete in context with ground levels & brickwork.

I added another photo. Does it help? 
Thanks

Section62

shanclover said:

He said the house we were interested in was underpinned 40 years ago whereas the owner said he was not aware of this ( only owning the house since 2019). The owner didn't have the building control certificate for their garage conversion and to get that done retrospectively, he had to dig out a hole in front of the garage for inspection. From the photos, would anyone be able to tell if the house was underpinned before?

It's quite normal for the front of garages to have minimal or no foundations - bricking the doorway up means putting in a sufficient foundation, so it is quite likely what is seen in the picture was new concrete put there during the garage conversion.

But that tells you nothing about whether any of the rest of the house had underpinning or not.

Does the council have any records of work being done around the time the neighbour is suggesting?

shanclover

Section62 said:

shanclover said:

He said the house we were interested in was underpinned 40 years ago whereas the owner said he was not aware of this ( only owning the house since 2019). The owner didn't have the building control certificate for their garage conversion and to get that done retrospectively, he had to dig out a hole in front of the garage for inspection. From the photos, would anyone be able to tell if the house was underpinned before?

It's quite normal for the front of garages to have minimal or no foundations - bricking the doorway up means putting in a sufficient foundation, so it is quite likely what is seen in the picture was new concrete put there during the garage conversion.

But that tells you nothing about whether any of the rest of the house had underpinning or not.

Does the council have any records of work being done around the time the neighbour is suggesting?

Understand. I think we will wait for more info when the solicitor does the search on the house. I just wanted to see if there is any clue from the hole the owner dug. Thank you!

stuart45

As Section62 said it's probably been put in for the conversion. Normally only the end piers are dug out for a garage.
Concrete for underpinning normally has a smooth edge where the shuttering was, whereas it would be rough like shown in the photo on a trench filled strip.

eddddy

Going off topic - It might be an 'interesting' situation for the current owners.

It sounds like they have no knowledge of the house being underpinned 40 years ago.  So when applying for insurance they could legitimately have said - "to the best of their knowledge, the house has not been underpinned".

If these investigations show it has been underpinned - they can no longer say that. They'd have to inform their insurers, and quite a few insurers might refuse to renew. And then there's the question of whether this is the type of "refusal to renew" that you have to declare to other insurers in the future - which results in much higher premiums.


FWIW, if I was the current owner in that situation, I'd be tempted to cancel my current cover asap without saying why - and move to an insurer who will insure houses underpinned 40 years ago on normal terms.

stuart45

Fortunately for the owner I don't think that trial hole will show whether the house has had any underpinning done. It only really shows the depth of the new foundation for the infill and part of the garage end pier foundation.