Ask our buyer to look at a crack (pic attached)

[thewayoftheplatypus]

We are in the final stages of selling our house. Up until now the buyers (ftb) have been very cautious and have had a survey, builders inspection, lots of checks, etc.

One of the things they wanted to check was where a wall had been removed between the living room/dining room by a previous owner. The builder gave this a clear bill of health.

HOWEVER- we had a large and heavy cabinet against the wall between these two rooms. I moved it whilst packing as I wanted to clean behind it and found this crack (pic attached)

It is hairline in thickness but as you can see, very long. It is on the wall the builder said is fine.

I don’t feel right exchanging (which we’re due to do on Friday) without telling someone about this. This is the first time we’ve sold a house so I’m not sure what to do really. Speak to the estate agent? The solicitor? Invite the buyer to come and look st the wall? Any advice apreciated

Honestly I wouldn’t. Unless you refused permission for the builder/buyer/surveyor to look behind the furniture then you haven’t done anything wrong at all. Chances are if you tell them, you’ll delay exchange. Houses have cracks, very few of them are sinister.

I would out of kindness. I would be very, very annoyed as a ftb if I spent all the money on a survey/inspections etc, fell in love with a house then found a very long crack on it

Do the nice thing and tell them, I highly doubt it will affect them buying it, but at least they're aware going into buying the house. They clearly care very much about your house

That's more than a hairline crack imo!

I wouldn't tell them. The crack is long but looks superficial. It won't change anything from their survey and you'll just delay the process.

If it's between rooms it's probably plasterboard on a stud wall. It cracks.

How close up is this photo? If the buyer's builder has specifically said this wall is fine then I don't think you have anything to worry about.

When a wall is taken out below, movement cracks commonly occur in the walls above due to settling. It's only an issue if they keep cracking or the cracks keep getting bigger. It's a bit late now, but a good thing to do in these situations is to fill the crack and monitor it to see if it reopens.

I didn't. We had a crack across our ceiling that got a lot worse after we accepted our buyers offer.

We were in London and it was last summer during that extreme heat. A builder friend said it was probably the heat and the tree out the front making it worse.

It never occurred to us to mention it, we wanted to sell our house 🤷