Buying property with subsidence?

[popsyb]

We've had a survey done on a property we're buying. It's indicated potential subsidence.

Will we get insurance on this property? We are happy to proceed and fix it ourselves, but I'm wondering if insurers will consider "potential" rather than confirmed subsidence risk when insuring, if there's no history of it from the sellers. Thanks!

There are specialist insurers who should be able to advise you further. I would guess that any insurer would exclude subsidence as it's already been identified as a potential issue. I think that it would be better if the sellers got it sorted under their insurance and then sold it as a problem that's fixed.

Are you getting a mortgage?

Solicitor has to flag it to the mortgage provider. Mortgage provider might then decline to authorise the purchase.

What is the context of the above statement? Why does the surveyor feel there might be potential for subsidence?

I wouldn't proceed. That's a black hole of potential costs.

Yes, we're getting a mortgage. Mortgage provider has done their valuation already and approved it.

Almost makes me wonder if it was even worth doing the survey! Also we haven't shared our survey with the solicitor and weren't aware there was an obligation to?

Re context - there are cracks in the walls (we saw them ourselves but were OK with them) but obviously the surveyor cannot confirm 100% that it's subsidence and just suggested getting a structural engineer. We weren't going to do that - so it's not totally confirmed that it's subsidence.

The house (1950s) had an extension (1970s) so the cracks are between the old house and the "new" extension. Nothing in the "old" house. Not sure if this makes any difference - especially as we were planning to do our own extension anyway.

We have an OK budget to do work and were planning renovations anyway. The house is significantly under-valued because of the potential issues (we're paying 175k less than originally listed after it had been on the market for 9+ months).

How are you getting on with this @popsyb ?

We decided to get a structural engineer to assess some cracks we saw in a home we offered on. Still in the early stages of buying, however report indicates possible subsidence and unable to confirm if it's ongoing or now just settlement after felled trees and roots removed etc. He suggested we ask buyer to cover costs of arbocultural survey and getting trial pits dug to check foundations. We are awaiting confirmation from the estate agent to see if the vendor will go ahead with these after getting quotes.

My concerns are, even if we get these reports back and it says it's likely the tree and no further movement etc likely, do we declare it? Do we need to obtain specialist insurance? Do I notify the mortgage provider? I cannot find any relevant advice online!

We didn’t go through with this in the end - largely for the same reasons as you (about declaring it etc.)

From the research I did, it would have been incurable but we would have had to have insure it with a specialist and then any future buyers would have had to have the same policy. I was also just wary that any future buyers would run a mile if there was historical subsidence so it would have been relatively more difficult to sell, even if we’d done the work to fix it. And given there was a paper trail with the estate agent, I wasn’t comfortable not declaring it. How did yours go?

*insurable

Great to know! Glad you're feeling much better about it all now. My grandmother raised 4 kids on her own and never really had much cash, she always used to say "you just cut your cloth. Adapt to new budgets and needs as you go" and she's right.

The home we had offered on is taking far too long to confirm they're doing the exploratory works we asked them to do. Plus, after realising extent of remedial works (just the ones we could see!) it looks to be unfeasible. I'm still waiting for them to come back, but we are very close to withdrawing offer. In the meantime, we viewed a house on Friday and although it's morally not great to do, we offered on it. It still needs work, but nothing looks to be structural. Just cobwebs and yellow cigarette stained walls! But the cobweb house is even more expensive than the first we offered on. Still less than 25% the value of both our incomes but is a sharp, steep increase from what we are used to!