Is this structural engineer's advice wrong?

ArcticCircle

Hi all, hope this is the right place for this question as it covers several issues. 

Purchased a share of freehold ground floor flat in south London and moved in last November. It's a converted house around 100ish years old and just us and a flat upstairs in the building. It's semi-detached with next door still being a complete house.  Had a level 2 survey done as the estate agent told me they couldn't do a level 3 survey on a flat (was possibly a mistake to listen to this) but the survey came back in July with brickwork fine and no signs of subsidence. On moving in I noticed some hairline stepped cracking above and below a small window in the living room which have widened and spread a fair bit and are also now mirrored on the outside brickwork too. Some of the outside brickwork near the bay window looks like it's starting to separate from the rest of the building in a quite terrifying way.

 

Got a structural engineer in who had advised Category 4 severity (extensive damage/structurally unsound) as a direct result of structural settlement and foundation movement, failed repointing, windows and frames separating from brickwork, inadequate lintel support . . . the projected costs come to £90k.

 

The structural engineer has advised we don't contact our insurer because of the risk of increased premiums/excess/loss of value. After asking questions he said we could tell them we are 'fixing cracks and carrying out reinforcement works' but not 'underpinning' -- can this be right? If we are underpinning then what would be the point of trying to hide it? If there were problems in the future and they found out we'd done the work wouldn't they refuse to cover us and potentially cause other problems?

 

Also I have images of when I viewed the flat that do show some of the initial cracking and nothing was flagged -- is raising a case with the surveyor an option to recoup the costs of this?

 

I'm at a bit of a loss where to go next with this and losing a fair bit of sleep. I've love advice from anyone who has gone through similar or is knowledgeable in this area.

tacpot12

I can't advise on the question as to whether or not to declare it to your insurers, because I don't have experience of this, but I would say that you have a potential claim against the previous surveyor. It seems like they missed a serious problem that would have been evident at the time of their inspection (although, they will no doubt argue that it wasn't). I had a similar issue where I was able to use Google Streetview to show that a crack had been present in a wall for at least 10 years (and hadn't grown since the Google Streetview photo was taken).
  
If you are able to report it to your insurers, you may find that you have legal expenses insurance as part of your insurance and can get legal advice and support to make a claim against the surveyor that their insurance will cover.

born_again

Did structural engineer say he could recommend a builder to do the work?

You pay insurance for a reason & this is one of them. Yes premiums will rise, but at least it fixes the problem, not just hides the issue.

Wicks

As above. You pay insurance for a reason.  Premiums will rise but nowhere near the £90K for the repair works.

As an example i had subsidence which my insurance company payed out to underpin, redecorate, liaised with neighbour as their tree roots were the culprit.  

I had to declare for approx. 15 years and my premiums went up by average of £150/year.  Cost me personally a total of £2250 in increased premiums against the huge cost and stress of someone else dealing with it plus all the trades.

My insurance companies now only wants to know if subsidence was in the last 15 years so it does not affect my premiums any more.

rob7475

It sounds worrying that they structural engineer is advising you not to tell your insurance company. By any chance have they recommended a builder to do the work too?

ArcticCircle

rob7475 said:

It sounds worrying that the structural engineer is advising you not to tell your insurance company. By any chance have they recommended a builder to do the work too?

He said he could go ahead and arrange underpinning so I suppose that’s the same thing. 

rob7475

ArcticCircle said:

rob7475 said:

It sounds worrying that the structural engineer is advising you not to tell your insurance company. By any chance have they recommended a builder to do the work too?

He said he could go ahead and arrange underpinning so I suppose that’s the same thing. 

In that case, you need to get advice from another structural engineer who is independant.

Bigphil1474

We had subsidence back in 2010 - like Wicks above, we had increased premiums for a few years, 10 in our case, then it settled back to normal. The subsidence claim had a £1k excess, but other than that the insurers paid for everything. Not sure on the full cost but it was well over £20k, plus they did a deal on the redecorating budget so we didn't actually pay the excess and decorated our self. I can't fathom why anyone would say don't go straight to your insurers for something like this. 

We sold our house last year, and it had no impact on value.

stuart45

I don't understand the SE as well. The only time I wouldn't go through insurance is if I did it myself, as it's often mainly a labour charge.

ArcticCircle

Bigphil1474 said:

We had subsidence back in 2010 - like Wicks above, we had increased premiums for a few years, 10 in our case, then it settled back to normal. The subsidence claim had a £1k excess, but other than that the insurers paid for everything. Not sure on the full cost but it was well over £20k, plus they did a deal on the redecorating budget so we didn't actually pay the excess and decorated our self. I can't fathom why anyone would say don't go straight to your insurers for something like this. 

We sold our house last year, and it had no impact on value.

That’s great to hear there was no impact on value. You must have been relieved. If you don’t mind me asking what was your insurance premium increase like? Was it 50% more or more like 10/20%? 

ComicGeek

As you have a share of the freehold, isn't your building insurance also shared between the freeholders?