Yes in this road we are on the top of a hill and pretty immune but elsewhere
on the sloping ground there have been problems with this, since its clay and
used to have quarries nearby which wer filled in. The whole problem was made
worse by an obviously concave load bearing garden wall of stout
construction was breached and the soil dug out to make a hard standing for
the owners car. I noticed within 6 months cracking on the steps down to the
hard standing and I do honestly wonder if anyone actually thinks before they
do thing s these days.
Brian

--

This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"SH" wrote in message
...
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.