Buying a property with subsidence (due to tree roots)?

[CityDweller]

We've seen a house we like, but the agent told us that there have been 'movement' issues (I presume he means subsidence) due to an oak tree in the garden. Tree has been cut down (is now a stump) and agent says it's 'covered by the insurance'. He showed us the cracks...

Is this just a complete no-no in terms of buying this house? I presume the insurance company is in the process of monitoring the movement in the house and/or fixing the problem. So if we were to buy the house getting buildings insurance would be hard/ we'd be restricted to the current insurance company?

Is there a way to find out more info about all this before putting in an offer/ getting to the survey stage (other than asking the agent, who didn't seem to be all that clued-up)? Is it just generally a really bad/ stupid idea to buy a house that has/ has had subsidence?

Do not listen to the EA they just want to sell the house!
I work for a mortgage company and we won't touch anything that is undergoing movement etc, at the very least we would want to see a certificate of structural adequacy which confirms all works have been completed correctly and a monitoring period has been complied with!
Insurance premium will be higher.
Some lenders won't take anything that has had movement with a ten year period, some will! Take advice from your lender maybe to see how they feel about it!
If you still want to go ahead then a qualified structural engineer is a must!!

I wonder if the tree is a red herring and the hill is the real issue? My parents had a house on clay on a hill in London. They could not sell it for about a decade in the 1990s because the subsidence had to be monitored for years and then underpinned before it could be insured in order for sale (dad had non-transferrable insurance linked to his occupation so this added to the nightmare). It was just awful. I would personally never, ever buy a house with known subsidence problems, in the light of this. My current commute goes past a house which has similarly been sitting next to an enormous hole for some years now and is presumably therefore going through the same process. It can be a total and complete nightmare - think very, very carefully!

We bought a house with exactly this issue. The house had stood empty for 8 YEARS as everybody was put off by the structural issues. It meant that we got it for a knock down price; however, we spent thousands getting engineers reports and a certificate of structural adequacy. As it turned out, the structural issues weren't nearly as bad as the looked. I guess everyone else just didn't think it was worth the risk/hassle.

Since buying the property (substaintial detached former vicarage) we've undertaken some work (extensions) which has "fixed" some of the "problems"

It's a labour of love, and these properties are never perfect, but then I guess that's part of the charm. Even the new parts have settled and cracks have opened up.

We have never had problem getting insurance (we're with the NFU).

We had subsidence thanks to our neighbour's trees (trees were about six inches from our property, he never trimmed them, south London, clay soil, blah blah). It took us ages to get it sorted as he initially refused to cut them down, but our insurers were brilliant. We've also got a certificate saying it's all fine. All the cracks have been repaired, there's no lasting damage.

I've never changed insurance companies though, just in case it's tricky (though our premiums barely increased actually) and we're not planning on moving for a looooong time, if at all.

As an aside, I can't tell you how pissed off I am with our neighbour still, three years on. If he'd maintained his trees in the first place, it wouldn't have happened - they'd been there a long time at sort of waist height. When they eventually went, they were higher than our single-storey extension. Or if he'd cut them down as we'd asked, we wouldn't have had to go through 'official' channels. As it was we had to fork out £1000 for the work (excess for subsidence) and now we're left with all this. I can barely bring myself to say hello to him when I see him.

Ok, thanks again for all the advice and stories. Good to hear a few positive ones in there, but we'll still proceed with great caution (if at all, pending response from EA regarding request for more info)

Ok, so now have more info. It's a historic (albeit quite recent) issues that was deemed resolved by the loss adjustors in 2013 (I have the correspondence from loss adjustor). Was due to subsidence due to clay shrinkage due to tree roots. 'vegetation management' carried out. No underpinning. Monitoring was carried out that eventually deemed house stable. There is a 'certificate of structural adequacy' (I've received a copy).

Interested in what anyone more knowledgeable/ experienced thinks. I'm not so worried about being restricted to only one/ a few insurers. Obviously mortgage is more of an issue, and will call our provider to find out their position on properties with this kind of history. Foolish to even consider proceeding with an offer because once one has subsidence issues such as this they're likely to return? Or worth it if we really love the house?

I am not highly knowledgeable, but the monitoring thing that was carried out before is the same thing that my parents had before the house was underpinned. IIRC it was something like 5 years during which they wanted to downsize and sell and had to just stay put while a surveyor came out once a year to measure the little pegs in the wall. I would make very sure that there is not a cat in hell's chance of the same thing happening again with this house, unless five years on hold at some random future stage would not be a problem for you.