On 01/05/2021 22:07, SH wrote:
On 01/05/2021 21:58, Kal Ico wrote:
Can anyone tell me roughly how much underpinning can cost please? It is a bog-standard brick 1930's house, 3-bed detached. The previous owners told me that it had been 'monitored' but nothing was found. A couple of the walls are a little out of true, but not massively so. Plus there are no significant signs of cracking (though it looks to have been pointed in the last 10 years). The area has other houses with significantly more obvious signs of subsidence (clay soil).

The valuation report said that there appeared to be signs of historical movement, but nothing on-going, which would be consistent with the off-level floors (very slight, but just noticeable).

I'm getting the property cheap, so can allow for any future cost of under-pinning if not too prohibitive. Alternatively, I could give up and walk away from the deal. TIA.

If the current owner has reported the subsidence to his buildings
insurance, you can apparently get the get the current insurer to insure you.

I would imagine the premium will be high as if you go elsewhere for
buildings insurance.

If you do make a claim for underpinning without taking out a policy
wiothe current owner's insurance company, the new insurer won't want to
know as it happened pre-inception of the policy and the previous insurer
won't be interested as you are NOT their customer.

You mention you had just a valuation? I'd be thinking about having the
full survey done.

It's not so much the premium which is loaded for an underpinned
property, it's the excess. The bungalow I live in was underpinned in
95/96. The buildings premium I pay is actually less than I paid for our
previous house. However, any repairs for subsidence/heave is subject to
a £2500 excess.

Note also that it can be difficult to find a new insurer who will quote
for an underpinned property. When we moved in over eight years ago the
previous owner notified her insurance company that the property was
being sold, and we would be taking over the policy. After hearing
nothing from that insurance company (who had assured the previous owner
we could take over the policy), they changed their minds and said that
although the property hadn't changed, the owner had, and they weren't
going to continue with the insurance! It took some searching on the
internet and phoning around to finally get someone who could give us a
quote. For a week we had no insurance on the building, which was quite a
worry.

--

Jeff