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miffyevans
Posts: 1 Newbie
I am in the process of trying to buy my first home. All seemed to be going well until we had a structural survey done independent from the mortgage company who had been happy with their basic valuation.
Our survey has a paragraph that says the house has evidence of long term movement. He also states that he cannot guarantee the movement has stopped without monitoring. Apparently monitoring takes one year - so not very helpful!
The house is located in South East London which all seems to be built on clay soil. The clay soil is probably the cause of movement and is quite common in the area. Trying to work out if this is a common problem with most of the houses in the area or whether our house really is at risk is proving to be open to debate.
We renegotiated on price and agreed a £5K cashback on completion.
The trouble is now that the solicitor has had to forward our survey on to our mortgage company (due to renegotation in price) who have asked us to get home insurance with a note saying they have seen the survey and are happy to insure.
Naturally every insurance company we have called have refused to insure us on that basis. They have recommended we go to sellers insurance company. We've now details from the seller on his insurance and a survey he had done which states the movement is historic.
We're waiting to hear from his insurance company as to what they will quote...but the whole thing is making us nervous:
I love the house and would really like to go for it but am worried we're potentially pushing for something we can't sell:
1) is there really a risk the house is still moving
2) will we have problems selling?
3) is this sort of problem common in buying a house
4) if we pull out of this one will we just find a different issue on another house? I don't think I've ever heard of a problem free transaction (but maybe that's just because people don't talk about the hassle free ones?)
5) Are Legal and General (the sellers insurers) legally obliged to provide cover?
We've been round and round in circles on this one and would really appreciate some guidance from people "in the know"
Thanks ever so much
Miffy
Our survey has a paragraph that says the house has evidence of long term movement. He also states that he cannot guarantee the movement has stopped without monitoring. Apparently monitoring takes one year - so not very helpful!
The house is located in South East London which all seems to be built on clay soil. The clay soil is probably the cause of movement and is quite common in the area. Trying to work out if this is a common problem with most of the houses in the area or whether our house really is at risk is proving to be open to debate.
We renegotiated on price and agreed a £5K cashback on completion.
The trouble is now that the solicitor has had to forward our survey on to our mortgage company (due to renegotation in price) who have asked us to get home insurance with a note saying they have seen the survey and are happy to insure.
Naturally every insurance company we have called have refused to insure us on that basis. They have recommended we go to sellers insurance company. We've now details from the seller on his insurance and a survey he had done which states the movement is historic.
We're waiting to hear from his insurance company as to what they will quote...but the whole thing is making us nervous:
I love the house and would really like to go for it but am worried we're potentially pushing for something we can't sell:
1) is there really a risk the house is still moving
2) will we have problems selling?
3) is this sort of problem common in buying a house
4) if we pull out of this one will we just find a different issue on another house? I don't think I've ever heard of a problem free transaction (but maybe that's just because people don't talk about the hassle free ones?)
5) Are Legal and General (the sellers insurers) legally obliged to provide cover?
We've been round and round in circles on this one and would really appreciate some guidance from people "in the know"
Thanks ever so much
Miffy
0
Comments
-
I'm not an expert on this but some of the answers should hopefully be fairly easy:
1) is there really a risk the house is still moving?
Presumably yes, otherwise you would not be experiencing problems.
2) will we have problems selling?
Yes, exactly the same problems that the current owner is currently having with you, unless there is some kind of work you could carry out to solve the problem.
3) is this sort of problem common in buying a house
No idea
4) if we pull out of this one will we just find a different issue on another house? I don't think I've ever heard of a problem free transaction (but maybe that's just because people don't talk about the hassle free ones?)
Who knows? You might find the same issue on another house.
5) Are Legal and General (the sellers insurers) legally obliged to provide cover?
No. They do not have to provide cover for anything if they don't want, and they may not have been aware of the problems previously, so may refuse cover when they find out.
Personally I would ask a builder whether it is possible to "fix" the problem, and if so, get a quote for the work. Then either renegiotiate the price or walk away.
There are lots and lots of nice houses on the market at the moment so finding a better one should not be difficult.0 -
hiya
this all sounds so familiar, i too am buying my first place and we also uncovered a history of movement that occured approx 10 years ago. our survey report states that there is no current evidence of movement but that it is fairly likely that there may be in the future as no underpining or strengthening work was done when it was first uncovered (the owners basically cut down the trees that were the cause and did some pretty basic repointing of the brickwork and whilst they could have done a lot more it seems to have worked for 10 yrs)
anyway to cut a long story short we also could not get insured with anyone as the moment you mention movement or subsidence they do not want to touch you so we are stuck with the vendors insurance company who have quoted us a fair bit more that normal as they can get away with it and we are stuck with them. i'm pretty sure that they are obliged to insure you as well.
its likely that the insurance will be more than you budgeted for but perhaps you can get buildings through them and contents from someone cheaper and therefore try and get a more reasonable quote.
where in the south east is your house? we are in the kingston area and many of the properies here suffer from similar problems or are of a higher risk.
we also loved the house and were pretty worried about it but after looking for ages we just wanted to go for it.
good luck , its not an easy decision but i don't think any house purchase is hassle free anyway.0
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