Getting insurance for an underpinned house

[pompey1939]

Hi, can anyone help, we were in the process of buying this house when we found out it had a 'history'. Had work done in 1991 and 1998 for underpinning so none of the regular insurers will touch it with a barge pole. Have any of you had a similar situation? Did you go ahead and buy or steer clear of a lifetime of expensive insurance? If you are insured on an underpinned house who did you use? Any advice welcome please. Thanks

[lady_p_gold]

well I am not an expert, but if nobody wants to insure it then that points to the fact that there is a risk of something happening ..... there are a million houses out there I think I would be having second thoughts about buying it, or negotiating a substantially cheaper price, also you might have problems selling it as the next person is going to discover exactly the same thing.

[themas]

I agree with previous post but if you are still interested suggest you find out from the present owners who is insuring it now. What normally happens with these things is that the work is done under the control of the insurance company, who are then satisfied and willing to go on insuring it - albeit probably at an increased premium.

But the fact that work has been done twice on this house is worrying - it seems to indicate serious problems, or that the first lot of work wasn't done competently. As well as the insurance issue, you should make sure you have a thorough surveyor's report covering the subsidence. If the surveyor is willing to give it a clean bill of health this should help with the insurance (& you could claim on his PI insurance if it turned out he was wrong); if the surveyor won't give it a clean bill of health then backing out is almost certainly the best option.

[Harley]

Think if you have problems now it will repeat one day when you want to sell it. A house like that will never attract a good price and if you have a good look round you will find all kinds of problems.

The windows may not be level, the damp proof course will have been damaged. The floors and walls. may not be level and the skirtings also.

In some rooms such as the kitchen the cupboards may disguise the levels, I would say stay away unless its really cheap and you want to rent it out.

[sense4all]

I live in a clay area around London, do not panic ask questions and lots of them.

* Who insures it now?

* Is the whole of the building under pinned?

* How did they do it ( pile driven and floating base concrete ) or deeper foundations all around ?

* Is it only extensions to the property that have moved in a different way to the main body ot the property.?

* Are there lots of trees in the area. Do they have tpo's on them? or is the problem water ( a spring underground for example.) Trees can be removed, water is a bit more troublesome! imho?

* Is the property competitively priced

I asked last year how much (two building companies) how much it would cost to underpin a four bed detatched in an expensive ( labour cost ) area both said under thirty thousand pounds. Hope this helps. I am an interested householder not a property professional.

[WendyS]

I must confess, however much I liked the prospective house, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, because apart from anything else, you may find that if you ever want to sell it again, you won't be able to find a buyer with a history like this. And if you're desperate to move, you will be in an impossible situation. Is it just this particular house which is affected, or is it in area where subsidence and underpinning happens quite regularly, i.e. in a mining area? I'd be tempted to contact a number of insurance companies and ask them how they treat underpinned houses in terms of increased premiums. And if you really do want to go ahead, get the services of a really good surveyor and brief him well on the underpinning issue.

[menotyou]

We bought a property that had been underpinned twice, the final time about twenty years ago. It was underpinned twice because it wasn't fully underpinned the first time, it is now fully underpinned. We took over the previous occupier's insurance, which was not "loaded" at all, although I believe the specialist insurers would charge about 20% more.
The house is on a clay soil, many of the other older houses (ie pre 1980) in the area have also been underpinned. Our house dates from 1930 and the original foundations were not as deep as current building regs require, which is probably why it had the subsidence problem. I have never regretted buying the house - the location is superb - and there are so few big older houses in this area I doubt there will be problems selling.