Subsidence - advice please

[SharpBluePoster]

About to put my house on the market as am divorcing my husband. However it’s on clay soil and in the last couple of weeks a large crack about an inch wide has appeared in the corner where the ground floor extension meets the original house. Subsidence I assume, due to the weather drying out the soil.

The original house is 600 years old and wonky as anything. This is the only crack I can see.

I am terrified I therefore will never be able to sell it and be stuck here forever!

Looking for advice on what I should do as next steps.

Trying to sell a house with a masive crack in it is the issue! If anyone wants to sell, fix it on your existing insurance. It’s madness to try and sell anything with an obvious crack. Any surveyor will find it and the buyers will walk.

@2031MummyTBC They truly cannot fill a 1 inch crack! The op needs to know what is causing this and insurance companies are not always the best people as they can have “friendly” surveyors and loss adjusters who work for the insurance company, not the policy holder.

Just be aware that with subsidence there is a long period of monitoring after repair to make sure that it has worked and that the ground movement has stopped. Our insurance claim took 3 years to resolve before the insurer's were satisfied and could issue a Certificate of Structural Adequacy, which is what buyers/the mortgage surveyor will want.

@2dogwinter If it’s underpinned it’s not going to be monitored for that long. However most subsidence isn’t underpinned and that means long monitoring periods and before they decide which solution too. It’s not a short process but it has to happen.