Buyer not disclosed underpinning

Slinky

We bought our house in 2017 and found out during the buying process (surveyor asked neighbours) that the side extension had been underpinned in 1990. The vendors (probate case, selling parents home) claim not to know the cause, although something in the paperwork subsequently received makes me suspect it was a collapsed drain. I found it astonishing that the vendor wouldn't know the cause of the problem, given that they'd lived in the house previously, and visited their parents regularly. Surely it would have come up in the conversation at some point in the previous 27 years.

Somebody asked about the long term effect. There is one, although we can get buildings insurance, there's a very limited number of insurers to choose from. Prices are reasonable though once you've got past 25 years. It can be difficult though to get a buildings and contents policy if you have anything other than bog standard contents requirements alongside.

BTW we paid £30K over asking price and broke the ceiling for the street. That ceiling has been broken several times since.

Wonka_2

Magik01 said:

EssexHebridean said:

OK - let's tackle the elephant in the room here shall we?

OP - did you have a survey? 

Yes, we had a full structural survey, didn’t find anything and said movement was historical, no mention of underpinning.

So house is stable, potentially more solid than others in the street, and it was caused by a drain issue.

Had you known this would you still have bought ? or would you have been happy to walk away and buy something that might need the same work doing in the future (and having been there with a young family I'd absolutely recommend having a house with the work already done than having to live through the building site that our house became for a period)

Unless you were looking to flip the house to make money then I'm not sure why you put credence on an estate agents views - and the longer it is since the work was done the less impact there's ever likely to be on price - bear in mind many houses weren't even built 24yrs ago - should we trust them any differently to yours ?