Natural spring under house? Maybe need Piglet John?

[Gigitree]

Hi,
Were getting really down to the wire on our house purchase. Due to exchange next week or the whole chain will collapse.
We have at this very late stage found out that water was found about 2 feet below the floorboards in part of the house during renovation works undertaken by the current owners.
They have said it’s due to a “natural spring” that runs below the house but they have no proof of this and we’ve already caught them in a lie as they didn’t tell us about this or a few other things.
its so late in the day we don’t have time to get a drainage expert or a structural engineer out to assess.

what would you do in this situation?

Walk away. Sad as it is the chain is not your responsibility.

Walk away. You may struggle with buildings insurance too.

It could be a leak on the incoming supply pipe from the mains. We had a leak under our house as the supply pipe had never been replaced since it was built in the 1930s.

Mains water contains chlorine; waste water tends to contain traces of ammonia (from bleaches); spring water tends to contain neither. See if your local water company can take a sample for analysis.

Walk away. Now that you now about it, insurance could be an issue.

Thanks @MrsMoastyToasty that’s good idea

@Daisymay2 @Northernsoullover @pilates
appreciate where you are coming from, but it’s a very complicated situation, we’re selling two houses to buy one, we’ve been looking for over a year, our mortgage offer will run out in March so due to rising costs it would be unaffordable for us to move.
so it’s not simply a case of ducking out of this chain and starting another. We would have to start from the beginning again, put both houses back on the market again, get a new mortgage offer which is going to be at a much much higher rate therefor meaning we won’t be able to afford anything like this house.

Ps all the insurance companies we spoke to didn’t care and we were completely honest with them about the entire situation

Did your buildings survey pick up on anything related to this?

Nope @ItsNotReallyChaos :-(

If you wouldn’t be able to afford the house at the higher rate, what will you do when your initial rate runs out?

There’s a spring running under our house. You can hear the trickle when it’s been raining heavily! It’s caused no issues for us or previous owners (we’re only 2nd owners - house is about 65 years old). Didn’t come up on any surveys (and we had a drains survey, although not for that reason) and we didn’t find out about it until long after we’d bought the house. It’s not an issue, I don’t think, cos our house is essentially part way down a hill and so it just runs off beneath the foundations.

I’m not sure what we would have done if we’d known about it before buying. Probably would have wanted to have some sort of drainage or other expert in to assess.

They might very well not care. But you will probably find that there are exclusions built into the policy for this sort of thing, as it was already known about. A bit like health insurance that won't pay out for pre-existing medical conditions.

That’s really interesting to know thank you @Flockameanie

@CrookCrane well being that it’s fixed for 10 years we’re hoping we will of paid a fair chunk off of it by then :-)

@barskits we thought this too and they confirmed they would pay out of there was any water damage in the future

@CrookCrane well being that it’s fixed for 10 years we’re hoping we will of paid a fair chunk off of it by then :-)

Fair enough. My family member has a stream running under the whole street. They have a pump in the cellar to stop it flooding.

I'd have thought that there are quite a lot of properties with springs running beneath them. If the survey didn't pick up on any signs of damage or other issues that indicated a problem with water then maybe it's ok?

We had a spring go under our house. Only found out after buying. Turned out everyone locally knows about it. Not on the plans deeds etc. Not actually an issue. Was a break in the damp course and wall went a bit funny. But house was fine.

There are lots of houses round my way with springs under them and they are sold and bought without any issues. If it is a spring it wouldn't put me off but it sounds from your post that you might suspect they are not being completely honest with you?

Supply pipe leaks are fixable and would be likely to cost hundreds rather than thousands of pounds to repair. That doesn't include repairing anything damaged by being damp when it shouldn't have been.