Inadequate foundations under part of kitchen... WWYD?

[SmileItsSeasonal]

We have just discovered (while undertaking another unfinished DIY job) that part of our single storey kitchen extension does not have foundations.

A builder has commented that it needs fixing urgently.

I would prefer to knock down the kitchen and start again... however the current kitchen is not on the plans for the house. Am also not keen on masses of disruptive building work with a baby and toddler in the house

Does anyone have any experience of this kind of problem?
Do you think our buildings insurance is likely to cover it?

We would really appreciate any advice / tips / hand-holding... :)

[PigletJohn]

I can't see any reason why the insurance would cover it - it has not been damaged, it was badly built. If you recently bought the house there might possibly have been insurance taken out for alterations with no planning permission, but I have no experience of that.

You could possibly get by with underpinning, but this would be very disruptive unless there is good access for trenching outside all the walls, and probably more expensive.

knocking it down and doing it properly would be the best bet but make sure you find a very dependable builder, and possibly architect or supervising engineer. At least you will have the opportunity to have up-to-date plumbing, electrical and insulation, and end up with a better-built, and possibly larger, more convenient and more attractive extension. Sadly it is going to cost a bit, but can improve the house...

If you have a planning permission application made up "to replace existing" it might save them noticing the old one was wrongly built and demanding it is demolished. If the new one is a bit bigger, with a pitched or hipped roof, say, matching the house tiles, it will blend in with the neighbourhood and look better, it should be looked on favourably. An architect or draughtsman should look at the site and recommend what would give you the best result.

If you have room, you might think about having some kind of temporary cabin put up in the back garden to use while the kitchen is gone.

[SmileItsSunny]

Thank you pigletJohn
Yes indeed I'm going to view it as an opportunity to get the kitchen/diner I'd really like.
We bought the house 3yrs ago. Survey didn't pick up any problems but we didn't pay for the most expensive survey.

I kind of thought insurance would cover problems discovered in the fabric of the house, but I'm a bit scared to ask....

I really don't want to spend money underpinning our small cold and ugly kitchen, so re build is the way forward. Hope the bank will lend us some money.

Your cabin suggestion is good. We do have space. Access may be an issue tho as the above problem was discovered when we took up the path to the side of the house!

[catpark]

How old is the extension ? I'm sure any building work comes with some sort of guarantee, i know replacement windows usually have a 10 year guarantee. Could you check with your solicitor ?

I'd also check with insurance company incase they will pay for it to be fixed.

[SmileItsSunny]

catpark we don't know, it's not on plans and previous owners have emigrated....

[Catsmamma]

i'd be worried if it was not on the plans...wtf was your solicitor thinking??

we bought a place that had a loft conversion/dormer windows and there was hell to pay over accessing the plans/building consents and the people we bought from had not done the work, the work had been done before they bought iyswim.

All was in place but their solicitor had dropped the ball when they bought by not finding this stuff out.

[catpark]

If it's not on the plans, then is there any planning permission for it at all ? As catsmamma said, what was your solicitor thinking ? His job is to ensure that if anything isn't on the original housing plans then there should be some sort of permission for changes.

The people across the road from me can't sell their house, as their house is an upper villa with side extension. But title deeds for the upper and lower villa state that access must be kept round the building for the lower villa to get buckets etc out (originally it was for the coal to get round ) The side extension is to the boundry line so no access round the back to the lower villa. Their solicitor didn't check the plans etc. when they bought it. They tried to sell a few years ago but no-one will touch it as it contravenes planning. They are having to rip the garage out and create an access pend or they won't be able to sell it.


I'd perhaps be contacting the solicitor to find out what searches he/she actually did on the house ?

[hugglymugly]

If it's an old(ish) extension, and there's been no obvious problem with it, the lack of foundations might not be an urgent issue. It's always been possible to build property without concrete foundations, providing the ground on which the walls are built is sufficiently stable and strong. And as it's a single storey construction, the weight would be a lot less than a two-storey.

I also think a lot depends on the age of the house and of the extension. Perhaps ask the neighbours if they have any idea of when the extension was done. Do other nearby houses have the same kind of kitchen extension? If so, that could indicate that it's the norm for that area. If it's a small extension, it could have come within "permitted development" which wouldn't have needed planning permission, though it is strange that it isn't shown on the plans in your conveyance.

Once you've had some time to think about how you want to proceed, it would be a good idea to have some plans/financing in place before approaching the planning department/building control people. Generally, they're helpful people, and it's much less paperwork for them when they're dealing with people who want to get things right (even if that involves retrospective planning permission) than dealing with those obnoxious types of people who think the rules don't apply to them.

[hugglymugly]

Sorry, when I said "I also think", I meant I agree with MrsMagnolia's point.

catpark, I'm a bit confused about your neighbour's situation (though that's not a surprise to me because what I know about property law only pertains to my own personal experience), and I don't understand what you mean by an upper/lower villa. But the title deeds to our previous property (which had a very long garden) included a covenant that the end of the garden couldn't be sold for development. That covenant also applied to a few properties next to ours, where the end of those gardens had been sold off and houses built there. All we had to do was take out an insurance policy which indemnified us if the organisation that imposed that covenant took us to court (and that organisation still exists). None of that had anything to do with the planning department.

I would be surprised if a covenant for access for such things as coal deliveries could really be upheld these days, but I do understand that if people want to sell/buy property, all those kinds of peculiarities can seem like a minefield best avoided - it's a lot of money these days.

[PigletJohn]

"upper and lower villas" are what we call "ground floor and first floor maisonettes" where I come from.

[catpark]

Basically a lower/upper villa is like a 2 storey block of flats. Lower has a front/back door, garden front and back. Upper has a door at side of building and the garden is all down the side of the building. Access must be maintained so that the people living in the lower villa can get round the side of the building originally for coal etc. but now for bins and maintenance issues. It is still enforceable as the neighbours across the road have found out.
The previous owners who built the extension had on their plans a strip of land at the boundry left so access was still there. Plans were then passed by the council. They then built up to the boundry instead and the current owners solicitor didn't check it properly and now they can't sell it . It contravenes the original plans as well as not adhering to the title deeds.

[hugglymugly]

Thanks, catpark, I can visualise the situation better now. PigletJohn - that setup is referred to as maisonettes round here as well - it must be a regional thing.

It's a horrible situation for the current owners to be in, seeing as they're having to pay the price, literally, for everyone else's failures. The previous owners should have abided by the planning consent, the planning department should have checked that they had, but it's the solicitor who's most at fault. I feel very sorry for anyone who has to deal with the consequence of other people's stupidity/ineptitude.

[SmileItsSunny]

Thank you all for your interesting replies.
The house is 50's - 60's ex-council housing. The kitchen extension consists of what used to be the coal shed (which had foundations) connected to the house by a wide corridor (which apparently does not). Probably small enough that planning permission was not required, definitely less than 10% of house area!

The solicitor did warn us that it was not on the plans, but we did not realize the consequences of this.

[SmileItsSunny]

Other houses in the road do still have the free standing coal shed structures.

[catpark]

pigletjohn and hugglymugly I'm in scotland and we have maisonnettes as well. But here a maisonette usually has 2 floors per dwelling and 2 in a block so 4 floors in all. Lower/upper villas are only a single floor per dwelling.

OP have you contacted your solicitor about this yet ? Just to get some legal advice about it.

[SmileItsSunny]

catpark no I haven't; I have rather buried my head in the sand. DH has filled in the path as a temporary measure.
There is a builder coming around on Saturday to give us an idea of what needs to be done.

I could email my solicitor...perhaps I should.