House selling and cracks in walls/subsidence.

[Bearcrumble]

I put my house on the market last week as we're looking for a bigger place.

It is an 1880s end of terrace workman's cottage.

We have a number of cracks in the walls - mainly around windows and doorframes, they were not much in evidence when we bought the house 3 years ago but they've got a lot worse in the last year. We had them plastered last winter and they have re-opened. They are mainly on the inside but I did notice some grouting had fallen out from between some bricks on the outside of the building as well, mirroring the interior crack.

We've also recently had to move the locks on our front door slightly as they stopped working - I guess because the door frame was moving. The back door is also now difficult to lock.

Our neigbours have also noticed the cracks and come to talk to us about them.

We both think they are probably due to tree roots from a fast growing evergreen tree that grows close to my wall (on the side where the terrace ends). The tree is in the garden of a pub that has been bought by our local estate agents as their new office. We've been asking for the tree to be seen to ever since the pub was owned by the brewery. I've sent emails to the estate agents about it dating back to last year. Nothing has been done so far but we've stepped up our efforts and I believe they've contacted the council to apply to cut it down. I will check this. They have to make the application because the whole road is a conservation area.

I was advised by a friend who is an estate agent to contact my insurers - I've done this and they are going to get one of their subsidence engineers to contact me and come round to look at everything by early next week.

My main question is, given the situation, would you be inclined to take the house off the market until the problem is identified and/or sorted? The photographer is due to come tomorrow morning and I am concerned that pictures of cracked walls are not the best way to sell a house (we were going to polyfilla them and paint them prior to the photographer coming but we can't now because the engineer needs to see them).

The lady from the insurance company said not to take it off the market (as long as we are honest with any potential buyer) as the problem will be sorted out eventually whatever it is, even if it needs underpinning - which could take up to 18 months - we can let any buyer know this is in hand and adjust the house price accordingly (we have to pay a £1000 excess on any subsidence work but are otherwise fully covered) and the insurers will transfer the policy and the work to the new owners.

I am in no great hurry to move, in fact I wasn't going to put the house on the market until next summer but because we wanted to view a few places the estate agents said it would be best to put ours up for sale at the same time.

I've signed a 12 week contract with the estate agents - I signed it last week.

I personally don't think there is any need to take your house off the market. However, as someone who has had a house who has suffered bad subsidence and also considered buying another one! I would suggest the following:

Make sure that your agents are clear about the current position with buyers (eg there is monitoring/investigation of trees etc) and don't try to cover it up and
Have something in writing from the insurance company re transfer of the policy

It will definitely put some people off - but - as my structural engineer said to me "most things are structurally possible" and an underpinned house in an area of subsidence is generally safer than one which is not!

I wouldn't market it until you have fully diagnosed the problem and identified a definite course of remedial action. After all, at the moment, what are you actually going to tell a potential purchaser? We might have subsidence. It might be due to the tree. It might be fixable. It might take 18 months.
It doesn't sound like a particularly enticing prospect. They will think you know more than you do and are selling to escape the problem.
You will not achieve anywhere near your asking price with so much uncertainty and even with a plan of works in place, people will want substantial discounts to take on the inconvenience.

What greentown said. Unless you are desperate to sell quickly (doesn't sound like it), I would not market it until you have some more information and solid answers to the questions that might be asked.

Thank you all - I have cancelled the photographer and will wait and see what the loss adjustor has to say. If it is the tree or subsidence I'll cancel the sale (if it is nothing to worry about the surveyor will give us a certificate and we can replaster).

If I've already signed the 12 week contract will the Estate Agents insist on keeping it on for 12 weeks or will they release me so I can get the problem sorted prior to selling?

Check what the wording of your contract with the agent says. The 12 week thing doesn't (usually) mean that you have to market it for those 12 weeks. It usually just means that you can't go to any other estate agent for 12 weeks. Assuming that's the case with your contract, then if you are happy to use the same agent next year, I don't think that the 12 week thing is a problem, it just means they will keep you on their books till then?

We recently pulled out of a purchase where the house turned out to be underpinned \ have previous subsidence issues, mainly because the vendors did not tell us up front and we then felt we couldn't believe a word they said on the subject. I would advise telling people up front then if its something they really can't get their heads around they won't waste their money and your time doing surveys mortgage valuations etc then to subsequently pull out.

The agency let us out of the contract when DH went down and explained today. Thanks again for the advice.