subsidence history to house we want to buy: major problem?

[firemaiden]

Found a nice house in an area which is suceptible to subsidence. Some houses have suffered, others not, even in the same road. the one we want alas seems to have had some in the past. We think it is localised and has now been underpinned so hopefully not a problem that will reoccur but:

• how easy will it be to get insurance? will we just have to take over the owners's policy or will others insure us?

• how easy would it be to resell the house in the future, assuming nothing changes? House is nice house in nice area with amenities close so general area is very sellable.

grateful for views/experiences.

Thanks

Personally I wouldn't touch it

B-I-L has just bought house with underpinning.Insurance vv expensive.Worth paying for really detailed survey and getting a few K knocked off asking price if you have your heart set on the house.HTH

some areas have subsidence but nothing too major to worry about

any advice on where to get really good, specialist surveyor? also, do we need to tell mortgage company? they had a survey done but the guy clearly didn't find out about the previous work so they have issued certificate without knowing about this.

does the owner's insurance policy take into account the history of subsidence?

we own and rent out a flat with a history of subsidence, which we think was underpinned at some point, and it has been a total b*stard to insure.

So look into the insurance position v carefully and ideally get a structural engineer's report, not just a survey.

Otoh, huge areas of London have a history of subsidence, so lots of people are in your position.

We lived in an area that was expected to present problems of subsidence with the added negative point of being to the side of a big river that may easily flood the area if they continue mining under the town (we were notified that ground was expected to go down by 4 feet in subsequent years).

The thing is that the village is so beautiful that nobody cares, we sold the house for twice as much what we paid for it 3 yrs before and that area has still one of the higher price rise projection for the following years for the north of England.

Now, our house had never been underpined so not a clue about insurance.

We have just bought a house that is underpinned - beautiful village and house etc etc. The main factor for us was that the underpinning was done 10 years ago and no further movement. The detailed survey also confirmed this.
However - we still had problems insuring the house and in the end had to take on the policy that the existing owners had. I did ring round about 20 other insurers and no-one else would insure for future subsidence unlike the existing insurance.

If you really want the house you need to weigh up the risk of it happening again v the house,location, price etc.

The searches that the solicitor will do will also show you how much subsistence has happened in the local area over the years too.

You can google 'PUPs' (Previously Underpinned Property).

Our house was underpinned about 15 - 20 years ago. We received a copy of the engineer's drawings / report / works guarantee and you can see it was done properly, and I called to check the firm was still in business. In the (very nice) area we live in, loads of houses have been underpinned but they still seem to sell very well.

Insurance was difficult if you wanted to declare the subsidence, but it need not be prohibitively expensive IME. The previous insurer will likely be your best bet.

This is the issue: assuming we get the subsidence checked out (but where do we find a structural engineer) and it has been done properly we need to weigh

the pros:

• lots of subsidence around in the area, very good area, good school etc

• on London clay so may well be further movement especially in a long hot year like this one. Your answers and my research suggest that the only people who will insure us are the people who dealt with the claim so they have us over a barrel in terms of cost which will no doubt rise steeply each year. Will many people be put off buying the house for these reasons so is resale and resale value, affected?

we live in an area of clay soils so much subsidence

our house is pinned (at 3 levels) but I think its precautionary and am pleased its already done tbh

insurers do like to levy a premium for it but its not excessive .. if you shop around you'll find a decent policy .. there's always a 1K excess for subsidence I find .. although this year I've increased the excess to 5K because I saved 40% on the premium .. its all a gamble anyway

you moving to SE london by any chance?

prudential
norwich union
first direct
churchill

although am pretty sure some of them own others in that list ..

I think we looked in the phone book, and just phoned a one-man band so we could talk directly to someone who had a clue. TBH, it is more or less impossible to just look at a building and advise of state of subsidence... it is something, as you no doubt know, that is monitored over a period of time. Nonetheless, a local structural person will have had lots of exposure to this issue so should have sound advice.

IMHO you also find many houses are sold WITHOUT declarations of previous underpinning when they have had work done, so you might end up buying one anyway. I appreciate there might be legal redress in these situations, but life is short. :-) I took a view that the area is notorious for it, and my house has already been done, at great expense, and properly, so hopefully won't be subject to more movement.

I don't think our insurers are the ones who originally paid out the subsidence claim BTW, just one who had a department / person who had the authority to take a view on a particular risk (my house) and decide that if adequate documentation / consultants meant it was OK / an acceptable risk to go ahead and insure us. We are currently with Halfix Buildings Insurance and have previously used Royal and Sun Alliance.

I think my premium is amongst the lowest of anyone in the area for some reason too ! (DW is a public-sector teacher, that sometimes gets discounts, house is usually occupied etc. etc.)

I think a certain number of people are put off buying a PUP, and there are a handful of others who don't care / factor it into the price / believe it is the right house for them regardless, so yes, it might affect resale and resale value, and perhaps you should attempt to work that into your negotations ?

hth

BTW - when we were deep in trying-to-get-insurance-quote-land I came across a site specifically handling PUP insurance / advising people on this topic. Didn't bookmark it but got to it through google.

Twiglett and I have good underpinnings.

you could try Adrian Flux (insurance agents). They seem to have access to more non-standard stuff.

I've found a PUP site based in Leonard on Sea offering to insure people in these situations. Not sure if they are cowboys or not. Would ideally prefer to have a company I have heard of so will have to try phoning some of the peoople you have quoted.

Basically, vendors are being difficult (haven't even admitted subsidence yet - their insurance company let the cat out of teh bag) so would like a survey to check if there is any more subsidence and if teh work to the front bay window (where the subsidence originally was) has been sorted properly. Just need to find good local surveyor who is a specialist in this area.

Do you think I should ask for money off the price?

get a structural engineer's report - that should establish if there's a problem or not.

If there is, you know how much of a reduction to ask for. Otherwise, you might ask for e.g. £10k off and then find yourself with £30k of work to do (not saying this is likely, but ykwim).

If you can't establish a specific problem, it would be hard to get a reduction if all the houses in the area are equally affected.

Personally if the work hadn't been done very properly, with supporting documentation etc. I wouldn't buy unless at a 30K discount (my estimate of a ball park price to underpin a semi). I also would be rather miffed at the vendor if subsidence (suspected or previously treated) was not declared.

If the house has just been redecorated on the outside and / or in, it might be very possible that significant cracks have been hidden.

Anyway I hope you find your dream home !

We bought an underpinned house six years ago. It was underpinned nearly 17 years ago now and has had no further movement. Quite a lot of houses in the area have suffered from subsidence due to the clay soils, especially the pre 1970's houses that have shallower foundations. Our house is one of a kind and I have never regretted purchasing it. We took over the insurance from the previous sellers and it is not too expensive - in fact it was cheaper than that quoted by the Mortgage Company before they knew about the subsidence.

I don't envisage any problems selling the house - personally I would rather buy one that has been underpinned, rather than a neighbouring house that might have the problem in the future - but not everyone thinks like me.

We bought an underpinned house six years ago. It was underpinned nearly 17 years ago now and has had no further movement. Quite a lot of houses in the area have suffered from subsidence due to the clay soils, especially the pre 1970's houses that have shallower foundations. Our house is one of a kind and I have never regretted purchasing it. We took over the insurance from the previous sellers and it is not too expensive - in fact it was cheaper than that quoted by the Mortgage Company before they knew about the subsidence.

I don't envisage any problems selling the house - personally I would rather buy one that has been underpinned, rather than a neighbouring house that might have the problem in the future - but not everyone thinks like me.

We have just bought an underpinned house a month ago. House is in a good area in a great location and a lot of the houses along that particular road are also underpinned.

For us, although I would prefer not to buy an underpinned property, it seemed a sensible solution to our house buying dilemma - we wanted to buy in an expensive area but couldn't afford the size of house we wanted unless we compromised on something, in this case, it was the fact that the house was underpinned. The purchase price was very reasonable and we have budgeted for the necessary building works to be done on the property which is pretty extensive, i.e rebuilding of all 4 bay windows where the windows visibly slope towards party wall along with other things we need doing.

Only thing I would add is what other posters have said, i.e ensure all paperwork is in place and certificates of strucutral adequacy are present and correct/indemnity insurance is taken out if not.

Good luck!

Aha Batters! I thought Palace road!!

How did this thread come up again? Just looked and noticed how old it is!