Subsidence

[drummergirl34]

Looking at a house in South Wales. I like it. But, perhaps a few warning signs:

• it's been up for a year with (apparently) no offers though I've had a peek through the windows and it looks fine. It was perhaps priced a little high, but it was an inheritence where the child(ren) don't live locally from what I can figure out.
• the village has a lot of houses for sale (about 10)
• about 0.2 miles away, in 1997 a building had to have an entire wall rebuilt due to subsidence.

I'm starting to wonder if this is why the houses haven't sold (some of them do have minor-medium renovation problems though) but I'd still imagine investors would snap them up due to being near to university.

Does subsidence affect whole regions or just small pockets? I'd hate to go through the process of offer / contracts / searches / coal mine problem. As I walked around the village I couldn't see any building with obvious cracks in (though one was stripped of its cladding)

I've had a search on Google, but haven't found anything other than this one building. Is there any other way I can find outif there's a mine right under the village for a reasonable cost?

Shallow coal mining can affect large areas, obviously dependent on local geology as subsidence will be at coal outcrop, by shafts and adits or by upward migration of voids from shallow depth. Deeper mining can have more localised effects due to locations of shafts and adits - which aren't always accurately recorded (or recorded at all) or adequately capped off. You can easily check on line or order a mining report:

www.gov.uk/check-if-property-is-affected-by-coal-mining

Thanks, it recommends that I do need a coal mining survey and comes back with a list of surveys that total £100's!

I will try to get an answer from local knowledge first!

CON29M mining search report is less than £40 including VAT:

www2.groundstability.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/coal_authority_mining_reports_and_product_pricing_catalogue_April_2017.pdf