Feel sick with worry. Neighbours house has subsidence

[AvaloniaFunk]

We have bern preparing our house for selling over the last few weeks. Just prettying it up today as the photographer is coming tomorrow. But builders pulled up outside the neighbours house this morning with some hefty looking equiptment . My husband had a chat with them and it turns out the neighbours have subsidence and the corrective works will be going on for some time. We hardly see the neighbours as the entrance to their home is on a different street. Both properties are detached. Does anyone know what this may mean practically for us?

Is your house the same as theirs? It might have been built differently with stronger foundations. Is it on the same subsoil? Are there any trees that might have caused it? I would go and talk to them and find out some more information, you may be reassured by what you hear. Is there any sign of subsidence in your house?

The house two away from us had subsidence - the builders had built over leylandii roots. It took a year for the remedial works to be completed.

We both sold last year - the only difference was their house sold for 10k less than ours. The issue didn't come up in our sale.

Have you noticed any subsidence or cracks in your property?

They are both old houses built at the turn of the century. We have odd little cracks but nothing unexpected on such an old house. I pointed these out to the surveyor before we bought and he said they were historical. I am nervous to ask the neighbour in case it is bad news that would really affect us, and once I know then I have to be honest about what I know. Can't believe the bad timing.

Are you detached? Are there any signs of subsidence in your own house?

I'm surprised the issue didn't show in the surveyors report for your sale ExchangedCat. Did you have to declare it on a questionnaire or anything?

You need to find out the cause.

I had a family member whose house needed subsidence repairs because a drain had been broken and concreted over at least 50 years before. Broken drains wash away the soil leaving a cavity. I had broken drains, and a leaking water supply pipe, in my first house, and dug them up and renewed them. I'm told there is an old house somewhere in the contry that does not have broken drains, but I've never seen it.

Other cases are due to nearby trees, or to poorly built extensions.

No reason why your house should have the same cause, but it tells you what to investigate. leaking pipes and drains are common in older houses, and you say yours is around the same age. Common indicators are paving or concrete that has been patched and repaired around gullies and soil pipes.

on the other hand, if their house was built over old mine workings, or on the site of an old millpond, then the same may apply to yours.

There are lots of reasons for subsidence (I’m an engineering geologist, I used to deal with this stuff all the time, but specialise in something else now).Some are very localised to a single property (eg: broken pipe, built on an infilled pond, tree roots), some are much wider spread (eg: mining). Are you in an old mining area? Even if not something big and obvious like coal mining (which should be picked up by conveyancers), there are many other minerals/stones that have been mined historically across the U.K.

Feel free to pm me your postcode, and I’ll see what I can find out.

We sold our flat a few years ago and our neighbours had had subsidence. It was even worse for us because they were in the same building as us and so we had needed to be directly involved. It was a rear extension to their ground floor flat which had subsided due to tree roots. The tree in question was removed and remedial works were done by the insurance company. We had to contribute money for the excess.

I was absolutely petrified when we came to sell as you hear horror stories about mortgages being refused or insurance companies refusing to insure due to subsidence etc but in the event it was ok. We had to answer a lot of questions about it but the fact that it had been dealt with and our insurance company was obliged to continue to offer us insurance meant it all went through. Our upstairs neighbour sold a few months later also without problems.

Good luck!

I am meant to be signing an estate agent contract tomorrow. Shall I postpone until the neighbour's underpinning is all completed? Surely trying to sell while that is going on is a bad idea? Or should I just get on with it?

We had a sink hole about 50m from our house and it didn’t impact our sale as the pits stopped about 40m away.

Take up BikeRunSki’s offer

I'd go ahead with the sale.

As pp's have said subsidence is often a localised issue - drains/tree roots being the main culprit.

If your house was impacted believe me you'd know.

My previous house had to be underpinned following works that were done by the NHS trust that owned the land next to it that impacted the foundations (their insurance covered it).

When I sold there were no issues, I just had to have all the paperwork to demonstrate what had caused the issue and that it had been addressed.

When the problem started it was pretty obvious.

It was an old house and had the odd crack where the house had settled but following the work we started to see new cracks appearing and importantly getting bigger.

If there's no evidence in your house of existing cracks getting worse or new ones occurring it's very unlikely you have anything to worry about.

If your neighbours’ subsidence is the furst you’ve heard of subsidence in the area, it is likely to be drains, roots etc. Are there any mature trees near their house?

Something like mining is usually more widely spread. It could be that your neighbours property is built on an area of soft ground, which is common where ponds, stream and landfills have been filled in. Your not meant to build on landfill, but regulation is relatively recent.

Or it could be that they had dodgy foundations to start with.

If it’s a fairly new house (post about 1990) then all this big stuff should have been dealt with when it was built. If it’s very old / more that about 100 years, it’s probably moved all it’s going to.

Thank you everyone.
BikeRunSki I'll pm you, thanks so much....

@AvaloniaFunk our buyers didn't have a survey done - they wanted to live in the postcode for family reasons and were just going to buy whichever house came up for sale first. Neither the solicitor nor the estate agent felt it had any relevance as it didn't effect our property or the intervening one.

If you've had no concerns about your property until now it's unlikely you need to start worrying.