First time buyer advice - ground instability search

Kharina

Hello 

I am a first-time buyer and would really appreciate any advice anyone can offer.

I have finally had the searches back for a house. These came back with a moderate to high risk of ground instability - this is based on the underlying geology and the fact that the land has been infilled. I had already had a homebuyers survey done which found no signs of structural issues.

Since getting the searches back I took my friend over to look at the house from the outside (sellers have already moved out) and she noticed a long crack around 1mm wide running down a couple of stories of the house but stopping well above the ground - the surveyor hadn't spotted it and neither had I!. I have since discussed this with the sellers and it has been there since they moved in, they have shown me evidence from the nhbc that the crack is cosmetic not structural (this was based on photos). They have offered to take the cost of repairing the crack off the price.

I'm currently trying to decide whether to get a structural survey done looking at the ground stability issue and if this is clear and house is sound proceed with the sale, or whether to pull out? My biggest concern is whether it might make the house difficult to sell in the future, as the same search results will come back and even if repair the crack it will be obvious it's been repaired. I don't anticipate staying in the house super long term so will be selling it again at some point!

 I wondered what others thoughts were - would this put you off buying even if there was a survey checking specifically for any structural issues? Or is the search result something that's largely ignored if the house itself is sound?

Thanks in advance for any help - really didn't expect this and was hoping to have been moving in soon! 

MultiFuelBurner

What are you plans is this a long term house or just a stepping stone to another property.

What exactly did the survey suggest the next steps are for Mitigating this moderate to high structural risk?

Personally first property we would want a clear report or as clear as possible but then we are risk adverse.

user1977

Have you spoken to your surveyor about it? That would be the most sensible first step if you think they've missed something.

ReadingTim

You mention NHBC, so I assume this is but one property on a new build estate?  In which case the problem won't be restricted to only your house, and could even affect the whole town.... I wouldn't be too worried to be honest

user1977

And if it's a fairly recent development, there's probably a much more detailed and useful report about ground stability etc in the planning papers - no idea why people bother getting these vague desktop searches especially when there is better information freely available elsewhere.

Kharina

Thank you all for your responses.

ReadingTim- The house was built in 2000, sorry don't think I said that! It is a small row of terraced houses all built around the same time I think. Half are on the natural geology instability on the search and all are on infilled land.

User1977 - Yes I have spoken with the surveyor, she said that as it was built in 2000 if it was built according to building regulations at the time and issue was known about then the searches shouldn't be too much to worry about, I'm trying to get evidence of this from the solicitors. Thank you for the tip about planning papers, I can see if I can find a copy of these.

Multifuel burner- my plans are likely that I would need to move in future, probably in around 5 years. The survey itself didn't recommend anything around it as it didn't find any structural issues - I'm thinking of getting a more detailed survey now we know the search result.

My main worry is whether this coming up in searches for the next buyer will make the property hard to sell, especially along with the crack?

housebuyer143

Kharina said:

Thank you all for your responses.

ReadingTim- The house was built in 2000, sorry don't think I said that! It is a small row of terraced houses all built around the same time I think. Half are on the natural geology instability on the search and all are on infilled land.

User1977 - Yes I have spoken with the surveyor, she said that as it was built in 2000 if it was built according to building regulations at the time and issue was known about then the searches shouldn't be too much to worry about, I'm trying to get evidence of this from the solicitors. Thank you for the tip about planning papers, I can see if I can find a copy of these.

Multifuel burner- my plans are likely that I would need to move in future, probably in around 5 years. The survey itself didn't recommend anything around it as it didn't find any structural issues - I'm thinking of getting a more detailed survey now we know the search result.

My main worry is whether this coming up in searches for the next buyer will make the property hard to sell, especially along with the crack?

Did you ask the surveyor why the crack was missed? I would be asking that rather than about ground stability. 
I would be getting the surveyor back to check the crack out and make sure she didn't miss anything else.