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?

So you have legal cover with your insurance?

If you are not covered then it looks like you will have to sue your neighbour for damages if they have caused the cracks.

@IMustDoMoreExercise Legal cover won’t touch this. Way too complex. It’s just not going to happen as it’s not clear cut on fault.

If it’s an older house, Victorian for instance, the foundations may well be pretty shallow - much more shallow than modern design requires.

A trial pit dug next to the house would be needed - I’d expect this to be part of any insurance investigations.

Would legal advice cover assist in the scenario that the OP obtains written advice from a structural engineer and that they had determined the cause of the damage as being poor quality, negligent building work next door?

Admiral (I think I read that this was the OP's insurer?) appear to cover this in their legal cover...

"Property disputes
We’ll cover the costs to pursue legal action after disputes relating to your main home or personal possessions, such as:

someone causing damage to them
legal nuisance or trespass".

I would still be looking at that mesh buried in the plaster work..
IV never seen galvanized angle bead used on internal plastering., more for external render
The mesh hole size look more like expendamet strip to me.
Expandamet was common around 10 year ago , before the arrival of plastic mesh..it was used to cover cracks.

The position, ( I think) , is ajecent and parallel to the door architrave, where you would simply plaster to the edge..no internal corner ( apologies if Iv got the wrong crack position)

The mesh also seems to of stretched and snapped in places..

Can you put a tell- tale on the crack to monitor any movement?

You say cracks are on party wall., I would expect some evidence of cracking on their side as well

@Solachan It’s not unusual on an unstable wall that’s had historic cracks. It’s deeply embedded by the look of it. However the history of this house in terms of cracks would be interesting. Settlement or heave.

I think that's the point..to me it looks like historical cracking that has been "repaired" with mesh and plaster , rather than helix bars and finding the root cause at the time..

I just think it's going to be hard to convince the insurance company to pay out, if there's evidence of past movement..

Have next door got a loft conversion of some sort? My understanding is that conversions can require the floor to be strengthened. Also, have a look outside at both the front and the back to see whether your roof and next door's look be okay with straight ridge tiles. If next door's works have affected the structural integrity of your house then I would expect your buildings insurance to help recover costs of putting things right from their insurance.

If there has been any history cracks or movement in my house. It was before I bought it and ive been here over 10 years. Nothing came up on the survey when I brought the house. Insurance companies keep a record or any historty claims for subsidence for a property. My insurance company said there has never been a claim for subsidence on my house or indeed in my road.

It is possible a previous owner experienced an insure but the repaired the wall privately and then lied about it when they sold the house.

I am still the innocent party in this. I am not trying to hide anything.

So what is your suggestion then? I just give up and accept my fate? We are not talking about a bit of cracking to the plaster work. The biggest crack has gone through a 9 inch brick wall.

I can't say if there is damage to their side of the wall as I have not been inside the house side the work was done. I do know that the crack is 9 inches deep and party walls in Victorian terrace houses are normally either 4 or 9 inches thick, so unless I have an extra thick party wall then the wall has cracked right through to the other side but they have plaster over or filled the crack on their side to hide the damage.

You would hope so, but given it was a family member that did the roofing work and the chimney removal there is a good chance it was a cash in hand job, so probably would not be covered on their professional libability insurance and probably not their home insurance either.

I am pretty sure the biggest crack has gone through right through the party wall and they have replasted or filled it on their side. I would have thought if the damage was covered on their insurance they would have had the work done properly rather than just covering it up and hoping for the best. This house is rented out, so the landlord is potentially renting out an unsafe house.

This is where the building inspector comes into their own. My suspicion would be that in removing the chimney they have left a portion of the chimney breast un-supported, and this huge weight of brickwork is pulling on the wall, hence the cracks.

Depending on what they have done on the other side there may well be no visible damage their side, and the only way to see will be to remove their plasterwork etc., which no private contractor can enforce, but LABC can.

Equally, if it is a I strongly suspect, if the brickwork does suddenly let go, as the bulk is their side they (or their Tennant) could come off worse, you may end up with a jagged hole into next door whilst they end up with 2 tonnes of chimney breast in the living room.

@LucyPowell77 I didn’t say you were hiding anything! I’m merely suggesting why there might be mesh in the wall. You might find there was no insurance claim or any record of anything! The previous owner just covered it up. Hence surveyor would not see it either. It’s only one theory of course. Anyway, good luck with finding out what’s going on and getting a claim approved.

It would be useful to have a plan of yours and next door houses. The chimney removal matters but what wall is the party wall? What does the chimney look like in the loft? There’s a lot of doomsday scenarios here but it might not be.

@LucyPowell77 have you made any progress on getting to the bottom of this? Your thread keeps playing on my mind.

Update.

After a lot of arguing with admiral they decided to appointment another contactor to do an in person visit to access the damage. The visit was earlier today. I should get a copy of the report next week. The guy was here for over an hour. I still don't trust Admiral. I suspect they are going through the motions to shut me up and stop me complaining, but they are still going to fob me off. The guy was from a company called Optera, I think they provide subsidence solutions. He said the outrigger (kitchen & bathroom) is moving away from the main house. He said that the cracks were not dangerous, and I hope I can believe him on that. However, he did describe the largest crack as a slight crack. I said it does not look slight to me. He said according to the official BRE 251 scale it would be classed as a slight crack. He may be right, I don’t know, but a bit understanding that as a homeowner it was very worrying would have been nice.
I will see what the report says, but I’m not ruling out having someone else out to look at the cracks.

Is there a reason you haven’t paid for someone to come out yourself? If you don’t trust admiral then wouldn’t you be better off getting someone yourself?

Oh dear, are thd kitchen and bathroom yours, were they an extension or the original, it sounds like they are reluctant to help.

I was phoning around to find someone to come out when Admiral had their change of heart. I thought it best to see what Admiral's subcontractor said before hiring anyone else to come out.

In the middle of all this some idiot decided to drive into my car while it was parked out my house, so i've also got that to deal with too now.

The kitchen and bathroom are mine. Yes, they are part of the orginally house, but like a lot of other terrance houses they stick out the back.

What does your policy cover you for? If you’re covered subsidence you may be covered for more broad movement. Look at the wording.

@LucyPowell77 That company deal with insurance claim work and have a “sister” company called William Hunt Consulting. I would say they don’t operate as fully independent consultants in that they don’t seem to have a long list of clients or design projects. Neither do they name any members of staff so you don’t know what qualifications they have. So my guess is they are appointed solely by insurance companies to advise on claims but, of course, they are not acting for you.

its not unusual to have differential settlement between two parts of a building. They might have different foundations for example. The key element now is what repairs will they suggest (if any) and how will they monitor the movement? How will they find out what’s happening to the offshore?

Can you see any external cracks where the kitchen and bathroom part meets the main part of the house?

You can read / download a copy of BRE Digest 251 here:

www.scribd.com/document/708501022/BRE-Digest-251

@SabrinaThwaite I did ask for external pictures ages ago. If it’s what the person who came out says it is, you would expect to see some cracks outside. You would not expect cracks on the inside with nothing visible outside.

I really sympathise OP but for goodness sakes you must take action, stop chasing admiral and expecting others to step up, they won’t!

1. get a structural engineer out URGENTLY to make a report - if the problem is caused by party wall works you’ll need a party wall surveyor too
2. Make a formal complaint to the ombudsman about admiral
3. contact Which or other consumers advice to get detailed help on this
4. contact your local ward councillor and ask them to kick up a fuss with building control on your behalf

Push everyone every step of the way.

it is quite likely that your going to have to take legal action against both admiral and your neighbour.

It’s terrible yes, but it’s not going away, you have to drive this every step, no one else is going to make this happen, so for gods sake get expert advise NOW.