Huge cracks in walls

[LucyPowell77]

I'm looking for some advice on how to proceed with the situation I find myself in. There are cracks appearing all the wall and ceiling in my house. A few months ago I reported the cracks to my insurance company as possible subsidence. Based on the photos have sent to my insurance company they have ruled out subsidence. They have said the cracks are just cosmetic and to hire someone to repair the cracks myself. I really wish I could believe them, but the existing cracks keep getting bigger and new crack keep appearing. Today I put a tape measure in the biggest crack to see deep in went and it was 24 cm deep.
I can understand why the insurance say its not subsidence. There are no external cracks and most of the cracks are upstairs along the wall that joins to next doors. While it probably isn’t subsidence, I still think it is structural. Worst crack is now so wide that I can see that the bricks behind the plaster are also cracked.

I suspect the cracks are something to do with the renovation work my neighbours did a couple of years ago. My old neighbour died. He had not done any modernising to his home for a long time, so it probably needed a lot of work to bring it up to a modern standard. The new owners did a back to brick renovation along with putting a whole new roof on. The roofing work caused me a lot of issues at the time and I did raise my concerns with the roofer. The roofer did not like being questioned and became quite threatening towards me. Unfortunately, the roofer was a relation of the women who owns the house and that relationship turned sour too. I remember thinking at the time it was the strangest renovation I have ever seen. Other than the roofer no proper trades people worked on the house. The owner’s ‘contractor’ moved into house for about a year and did the rest of the work himself. I received no notice any work was going to done and no party wall agreement was issued. I am not a 100% sure if I should have received one or not. I don’t know if they should have issued one for the roof replacement. I suspect they may have removed an internal wall upstairs. The house used to be 3 bedrooms, but when it was rented out it was listed as 2 bedrooms. The cracks on walls are inline with what you would expect from a house suffering from roof spread. My house is a Victorian terrace and from what I understand they were only built to hold the weight of a traditional slate roof. I know my neighbours changed their roof from slate to something else, but I don’t know enough about roofing to identify what tiles they are. If the new tiles are heavier, they could have caused roof spread. I know they did not get any form of approval from the council for any of the work they had done. Also, I’ve noticed I seem to be able to hear a lot of what the tenants living next door are doing. I never heard the guy make a sound when he lived there.

So now I found myself in a situation where I have some very big very concerning cracks on my walls and ceiling, but my home insurance company are not interested at all. I suspect that it has something to do with work my neighbours have had done, but I’m not an expect so I could be wrong. I haven’t done any renovation or building work myself that could have caused structural issues. The situation is very stressful. The cracks on the ceiling in the smaller bedroom are now so bad that I am really concerned about how safe it is for my family to sleep in there. I feel out of my depth with this. My house feels unsafe, but it might be overreacting. The relationship with my neighbour is broken to the point we can’t have a friendly chat about this. If the issue is coming from her side than I would probably have to go down the legal route to recover costs. While I can’t ignore the damage I am scared of taking legal action against my neighbour. I fear there would be a backlash against me and things could get nasty. I need to establish for certain what’s causing the cracks. I thought my insurance company would at least send an accessor out to look at my house and tell me what the cause is, but they have refused to do that. A local surveyor has quoted me £1300 to assess my house and write a report for me. I can’t afford to spend that much, but I desperately need answers. Maybe I’m being suborn but I don’t think I should have to pay for a surveyor.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did you get it resolved?

Had an issue with an insurer, slightly different, but having been a commercial insurance claims handler, my knowledge helped, as did reading the small print in the policy. You are the customer and do not be fobbed off, insurance companies love to take your money and hate to give it back!

Produce a diary (as best you can) of calls, what you noticed and when. Lodge a claim and state there is a building / personal safety issue, concern for structural integrity of your home, due to significant building fabric shift - lay it on thickly and tell them the building feels unsafe in your opinion and you want that formally acknowledged in the event something untowards occurs. When you ring ask to speak to the manager, as you've been ignored previously and felt the knowledge of the call handler was insufficient to deal with your concerns and you were being dismissed, treated badly.

@HonestOpalHelperYou actually know that do you? It’s absolutely possible to know what might be wrong by an expert looking at it. They have probably seen similar before but building control won’t fight an insurance company!

I suspect most insurance companies play the same game to avoid being liable to pay for repairs. A relative had a similar issue with LV Insurance.

Well that’s not true. She needs to find out what is going on and go back to her insurance company. She also needs to take immediate steps to stabilise the house if it’s moving - particularly if it’s moving quickly.

LABC have the rights of enforcement, a freelance engineer or surveyor do not. If action is needed immediately building control will arrange and recover the costs from the party that caused the damage.

https://www.labc.co.uk/professionals/dangerous-structures

It’s not about getting into her neighbours property. It’s about making her property immediately safe and if that involves propping something up then that isn’t the council.

A structural engineer could’ve been there two days ago.

In all likelihood if the issue is as a result of next doors bodged work, then props will be needed both sides, just propping one side could make matters worse.

The wall is inherently structural to both properties, and no proper assessment of the cause, and therefore solution can be made without viewing it as a whole. The neighbours can just refuse access if they wish, but not to LABC

I would advise the OP to follow up today, calling the council back, using terms such as rapid movement / concern of an immediately dangerous situation and an inspector will likely be out today.

Worse case scenario both OP and next door will have to go into temporary accommodation - another good reason to chase LABC, the people next door could unwittingly be at greater risk than OP.

LABC won’t deal with insurance! The engineer would! That's the difference. Do both, they aren’t mutually exclusive.

The lady I spoke to yesterday in the building control department called back this morning just to say she hadn’t managed to find a inspector who could visit my house yet, but she was still trying, and she would call again later today with an update.

I have found an email address for the building control team, so I am going to send them the photos of my cracks. I have also got before and after photos from google of next doors house. It shows they removed a chimney, but the chimney was on the other side of the house not near the party wall so I don’t know if that would impact my house or not. I will send those to the council too. Is nothing else it is showing a lot of work was completed, but no building regulations were submitted.

I have been getting quotes for someone to visit my house and have a look. I think my first priority has to be founding out if it is safe to keep living in my house. I know no one I hire will have to power to inspect next door if indeed the cause if coming from that side. If I am told by professional, it’s unsafe to live here then I will leave my house and find somewhere else to stay. As much as I love my house its not worth risking mine or my family’s life. I do have pets though which will make getting somewhere else to stay harder. I am hoping the council will come through, but I don’t know how long it will take.

My emotions have been up and down the past few days. I have spent months fighting for someone to take this seriously and not fob me off. This community has confirmed I am not overacting and going mad. That feels very validating, and I am grateful to everyone who has taken the time to comment. However, the downside is that I am waking to just how serious and dangerous this situation is. I feel angry, upset and scared, but also galvanised.

I wondered about that too....I'm not an expert, but it does look as though remedial work has been done to address a similar cracking issue at some point in the past.

Seriously hope you get this resolved ASAP @LucyPowell77- it must be so incredibly stressful for you, not least the way Admiral have fobbed you off, making you doubt yourself.

First rule of engineering is to correctly diagnose the problem before jumping in with solutions. The building control officer will be able to look at both sides and identify what the source of movement is. Then the OP can go back to her insurance company or if she wants, get a structural engineer in to advise.

If next door have a roof or wall moving, it needs tying/propping from that side.

BTW I think the mesh visible in the crack is just the corner bead of the plastered wall.

You're getting there, OP. Your tenacity is really something to behold and you have really good reasons to be proud of yourself. It's hard to take on massive insurance companies when they're essentially gaslighting you in order to not pay out. Don't give up or back down.

I told my OH about this thread last night and he pulled a face when I mentioned Admiral. I guess he's looked at them for car insurance in the past and not been impressed.

I totally forgot to mention this last night as I'm surviving off 3 hours' sleep a night atm, but there is a BRILLIANT, amazing and supportive FB group that I default to for anything related to old houses:

Your Old House UK - Repair and Conservation

I don't think you can post anonymously, but if you message the main admin, Jane, she'll do it on your behalf.

Make the post as comprehensive as you can possibly make it, why you think it may be x or y, photos, diagrams of the terrace layouts if possible, what type of professional may be able to do what - and - quite crucially - that you don't have a big surplus of cash to keep flinging at investigations.

I would also recommend asking: is this an immediate danger, is there any way to make it safer in the short term whilst investigations are ongoing (esp as moving with pets is tricky).

I'm reasonably confident that group can help you get to the bottom of it. There are engineers, architects and nerds who are obsessed with old houses in there.
And if they can't, they'll at least help with ongoing support whilst you 'fight' the insurers and neighbours.

(just don't show them the inside of your house if it's fully modernised, they'll set a lynch mob on you, teeee)

Also, because I'm quite worried, can you please keep bumping this thread with updates, thanks.

@NotMeNoNo Oh dear! First rule of engineering is understanding building control are not structural engineers! Get a wet behind the ears 25 year old and they just won’t know much.

@LucyPowell77 What do the external walls look like? What about skirting boards? Are they still where they should be? What about downstairs rooms? Was your picture a bedroom. Have a good look round outside too? Anything moved, like a path? What does the loft look like? Party wall?

Some more pictures for context. The ceiling one is from the back bedroom. It looks like part of the ceiling has dropped slightly. I know the ceiling damage is no way near as bad as the bathroom but its worries me just as much. I am concerend the ceiling may suddley just give way. I think there has also been movement in the loft above this room. I noticed when I was up there yesterday that my loft boads have moved. They used to fit snugly together, but there are gaps between some of the boards now.

Regarding the wire. I am not sure. I have not had the wall replasterd, so it would have been done by the previous owner. I no there is no history of subsidence and nothing flagged up as part of the survey when I brought the house over 10 years ago.

I understand that wire is sometimes used to give the plaster extra strength, but I don't know if that was done just as a precaution or because a previous owner had experienced problems.

@LucyPowell77 Where does the door lead to? Is it an extension? A section of the house built at a different time?

The big crack is in the bathroom upstairs on the party wall. There is no sign of cracking on the outside of the building. Yes, the skirting boards have moved there are now gaps between the wall and skirting boards in some of the rooms. The second worst crack is along the ceiling pretty much directly below the large bathroom crack. Unfortunately my boyfriend tried to help me filling the ceiling crack with pollyfilla last weekend. I still have all the pictures of the crack before he tried to fix it though. I have noticed that my loft boards have moved apart.

Do you mean the one next to the big crack? It leads to the up stairs landing. As far as I know the whole house was built in one go.

@LucyPowell77 So the pictures are downstairs on an external wall? What’s outside where the cracks are?

All the pictures I have posted are upstairs. I live in a terrance house and the large cracks are on the party wall, so there is nothing external to look at.

Is there a house the other side of your ndn, is it a shared roof, are all the cracks on the same wall, do you know what foundations the house was built on, can you see any dipping on the roof from outside.

Update.

I've just called Admiral again. I wasn't expecting much, but I wanted to know what they thought of the new photos I sent accross on Wednesday. Also, I needed to call them to start complaints procedure. As usual I couldn't get hold of my claim handler. I spoke to some one else and they have finally admitted the cracks are structual not cosmetic. Unfortunately the only type of structual damage admiral cover is subsidence and even if I pay for a survey and find the cause of the damage, if it is not subsidence they will not cover it.

I said 'what was the point of my mortgage provider insisting on buildings insurance in order to protect their asset if they didn't actual cover most kinds of structual damage'.

I did get a bit angry and swore once, but I think thats understandable. Anyway, the guy has said they will start the complaints procedure and I should hear from someone in the compliants team early next, although I won't hold my breath because Admiral don't keep their promises.

Earlier on today I emailed the council with the photos and a bit of background information.

I think I will put in a data access request to Admiral. They probably record the phone calls and I have been given conflicting information by different advisors. Also they probably have the telephone recording from when I took out the insurance. I'm pretty sure I was not told about all the expections to the cover.

@LucyPowell77 You should be able to access a copy of the policy - either on line or they will have sent you a hard copy. Without sending someone out to look at it, they don’t know if it’s covered by your policy of not. It could bd somewhat dramatic settlement cracks in the plaster but they won’t know without looking.

What a nightmare for you! Your damage may be covered by next door's building insurance? Or maybe the family member who did the work has professional liability insurance?