How to fix these ceiling cracks?

[MarthaPie]

We moved into a house that is five years old and it has some cracks upstairs between the ceiling and walls (I've attached some photos). There are no structural cracks outside on the brickwork... the surveyor said they are from the house settling through expansion/contraction. I want to try and fix it myself. I've already used some spackle to fill in the cracks and smoothed it over, but in some places, it's cracked right back.

Does anyone have an idea as to how to fix this unsightly problem? Thank you!

You need to fill them (pollyfila from a tub or tube) and then paint over them with polycell crack paint like this stuff
www.wilko.com/white-paint/polycell-crack-free-ceiling-smooth-flexible-matt-emulsion-paint-white-25l/invt/0105560

It looks to me like it's cracking because there's movement between two surfaces.

Get a Stanley knife and open up the crack (I know this feels really counterintuitive!).

Fill it with caulk, as this is flexible and will move with the joints. Polyfilla or something that sets hard will tend to crack again. Make sure you don't use too much and that the finished result is nice and smooth.

Paint over it! Tada! You'll need to do the whole ceiling, as otherwise the new paint won't match the old.

whisky is right on the caulk. I said pollyfilla in a tube but that's what I meant whoops!

I do recommend the Polycell crack free paint though!

Apologies derelict - I read my post back and realised it sounded like it was criticising you! I don't think I'd even read your post when I wrote it! (One of those things where I wrote half of it, got pulled away by something, then finished off ages later!)

Thanks for the tips! Should I then remove the spackle that I've already applied?

I can't see the pics properly on my phone but, I recently spoke to a good decorator about some of my wall cracks. I previously scraped them out and filled them which seemed to work but didn't last. He said that sometimes you need to go right through to the wall and then squirt in sealant which acts like glue. You can then use filer to give a nice surface.

My guess is it'll mostly fall out when you go in with the knife!

• filler not filer.

The join between the walls and the ceiling should have had tapes on. Looks like they missed it on your house. We had the problem that some of the tapes came away on our new build which is why I how they were there in the first place!

Murinae would that be mesh tape? Should I put flexible filler first in the crack, then put the tape on and then cover with spackle?

SandandSea that sounds pretty good but not sure I could do that myself unless I had a squirt gun for the sealant to get in the cracks. Maybe I have to get the decorator in . That would be expensive as it's in all the upstairs rooms.