Can't get decent house insurance...however will this sale go through?

[marthabear]

Our home has a history of what has been classed as subsidence. The problem was solved ( leaking drain fixed) and some underpinning work undertaken. We have sold our house and of course our buyers know all about the problem that the house has had and have been given all the relevant paperwork to look through. The problem is, I didn't realise how expensive our home insurance is when compared to others. It's £90 per month for a fairly small house. We are still with the original insurance company. I am worried that when the buyers realise this they will run a mile so I have been trying to get more competitive quotes this week, only to find that nobody will insure us. They hear the word subsidence and turn us down immediately. Anyone had experience of this?

We had a sale fall through on our old house because the previous owner had built their own porch with insufficient foundations and it had subsided. It didn't cause us any probs as we only had a valuation survey and the subsidence was arrested, but when we came to sell their surveyor mentioned subsidence and it then became impossible for them to insure the house. We couldn't even insure them on our insurance. We ended up rebuilding the whole porch and not mentioning anything about it having replaced an identical one and our next sale went through no probs. 10 years later the porch we rebuilt is still standing and firm so I feel no guilt! In your case, have you tried the specialist insurers like hiscox (i think it is)? You may have to reduce the sale price to reflect the pricier insurance though.

there's not a lot you can do. You've declared everything and it is for the buyers to decide what the house is worth to them.

sit tight, you've done all the right things. But I really would do all you can to encourage these buyers.

Do you have copies of the all documents relating to the corrective work? If you haven't done so already I'd ensure the buyers have seen copies of these so they are reassured the problem is now remedied.

Other than that .... not much you can do! Fingers crossed they love the house and want to continue.

Yes, unfortunately you're original insurer has a duty to continue the insurance (at a higher rate) but not many other people will touch you which makes getting a better deal pretty impossible.

I'm afraid to say we pulled out a sale because of this exact problem, the home insurance was going to more than double and we decided we'd rather put that money into a mortgage on a home that wasn't 'tainted' by subsidence.

We didn't really have an issue with the subsidence itself as it had been sorted but the home insurance companies are extremely unreasonable about it.

Does my insurer have a duty in insure the new owner as well?

Yes I believe they do and you can get proof if required that they will transfer it to the new owner as this is what our seller did, I think it was a letter from their insurers.

Our insurer said they would only insure us as pre-existing customers, not the new owners (though we made no claim on our insurance).

We were told that the insurer has a duty to continue the insurance although it turned out our sellers had never told them about the underpinning work so their insurance was void anyway. Have you tried Admiral?They were the only one who gave us a decent qoute, most companies refused to quote for us.

Have you tried companies that specialise in subsidence cases? Or a broker. If it's been fine for several years now it shouldn't exclude you from getting insurance.

You could offer to reduce the sale price to give your buyers money towards the higher insurance costs.

Have the buyers had confirmation that the mortgagee is fine with the history? I believe your insurer is obliged to continue with insurance for your purchasers but this would make them hostage to whatever premium they set and means they can never shop around. Insurers seem to get hysterical about subsidence without looking at individual circumstances. Good luck but I'm afraid I would be put off buying as it would be hassle when reselling and potentially facing hikes in premiums.

You're right worried about the insurers being hysterical. One insurer we checked with said they wouldn't insure an entire postcode as there had been one house with subsidence in that patch.

I really feel for people in this situation as it's the insurance companies making houses with historical subsidence a problem to buy, not the issue itself.

I'm on the other side of this at the moment, trying to buy a house that had a minor subsidence issue resulting in a 3k claim two years ago. Vendor didn't declare it but I found out. Their insurance company (Prudential) agreed to cover me at a cost of £200 a year which was double other quotes (before knew about the problem) but not unreasonable. My next problem is that they have no proof the work was done!

Have you tried the Salvation Army? They are very sensible insurers.
I managed to insure a property with (very historical >20 years) subsidence due to inadequate footings with all necessary documents/evidence of repair/recent full structural survey and also a "flood" (actually blocked sewer repaired by Yorkshire water resulting in a puddle of water in the garden!)
The underwriters look at individual cases and the supporting documents rather than "computer says no" attitude of other companies.