Value of a house with past underpinning?

[sophiesofa]

I've posted to pick your wonderful brains.

We've had an offer accepted on a house in Chislehurst. We've since found out it was underpinned in 1985. At the moment we don't know much more than that, but assuming there's been no signs of movement since (and this is documented) would the value be affected? We've done a bit of research and as it was so long ago and we have a good deposit, we shouldn't have issues obtaining the mortgage and Insurance seems fine (they seem to be fine generally with work that long ago) just not as easy as 'normal'. We've talked to people about it and we're getting conflicting advice. Will the house be worth less than what we had accepted, given the past history? I have of course searched google but there's divided opinion, except that most people think underpinned properties are actually a safe bet, it's just the problems/stigma attached to them. We do appreciate it will be harder to sell on in the future.

We keep jumping from walking away, to let's see when we've got more details. My gut tells me if we are to continue with the purchase we need a chunk of money taken off?

Thank you for any words of wisdom.

I wrote that on my phone so apologies for any typos.

[sophiesofa]

Anyone have any ideas? It's a little house and we don't have high salaries, so we're scared of making the wrong decision. If we are going to pull out we'd like to do it early on to save money and time. If we were going to stay there forever we'd buy it, we're just worried about selling it on in the future.

I know this is an incredibly boring thread but it doesn't really belong in the ed businesses section.

[Mustard]

If I was you I would find out who was insuring it in the past, for example did they have to stick with the same insurers, and also try talk to other insurers about their views on insuring it. I think underpinning only carries guarantees for a limited amount of time, 20 years possibly. From what little I know most insurers take a more tolerant view now of houses which have been underpinned.

Can you find out why it was underpinned, was it tree roots, or just regular subsidence?

If there won't be a problems in insuring it, then I would go for it. Underpinning is very common in the London area due to the clay soil. Have you had a survey done on it? There was a lot of underpinning done after the hot summers in the late seventies, so this might have coincided with the underpinning done on this house.

[KidKruger]

I think it's extremely subjective what the house is 'worth'.

If you want it then pay enough to get it, if that's a bit less than a house around the corner that doesn't need underpinning, then great.

But the market still favours the seller in London so it's not as if you can deliberate all day long - if you want to be sure of getting the property.

[Robert Poste's Child]

Someone in my family has a small house which was heavily underpinned in the past. They bought cash (it's outside London) with a view to a rebuild, which would have been fine, but so far they've been turned down for planning permission and are considering more of a conversion, which wouldn't need permission, but without a rebuild it may be difficult to get a bank to lend to them. Should they need to sell, that would also mean any future buyers would need to pay cash.

Sorry to sound negative, but if it was me and I didn't feel excited about it as a project, and also confident I'd worked through the potential scenarios, then I'd tell myself it's not right and drop it.

[skylorikeet]

Subsidence is very common in south London, is it a Victorian house? They often had inadequate or no foundations. Most of the houses in my road have been underpinned as they have no foundations. Also houses were often underpinned in the 80s following the hot summers of the 70s (showing my age here!), it was quite the fashion. Ask the vendors whether the underpinning was done once then not needed again, ask them if they have had trouble getting insurance since the underpinning. If the answers are yes to the first question and no to the second I personally would not worry too much. We bought our house knowing it had been underpinned. At first we had to stay with the same insurer but more recently have changed insurer. Maybe ring for some insurance quotes and see what kind of response you get (ring rather than apply online so you get more info on how they consider underpinning). Also call an estate agent in Chislehurst and ask them how easy it is to sell a house which has been underpinned. Their response will give you more of an idea about resale issues.

[sophiesofa]

Thank you everyone, you've all been really helpful.

We've asked our solicitor to start the conveyancing work with only getting more info about the subsidence history and insurance stuff for now. We don't yet know why it was underpinned and at the moment we don't think it's moved since 1985. It did have a 20 year guarantee, now expired. The vendor doesn't seem to know much about it (he's owned it for 12 years) but hopefully the solicitors will find out details. It's a 1930s house and the house it is attached with was underpinned at the same time, but the neighbours on the other side (not attached) we don't think have been underpinned.

I guess if we do get as far as paying for a survey, we can ask the surveyor to take into account the underpinning when he values it. Otherwise I don't think the vendor is going to budge on the price we had agreed prior to finding this out.

Thanks again

[MGolden]

Our 1930 eot house was underpinned about 25 years ago. We bought it 15 years ago. Initially we had to stay with the insurers who paid for the underpinning but as skylorikeet above has said insurers appear less concerned now. We have changed insurers but have a large excess for any work that is required as a result of subsidence. Since we moved in we have added a loft conversion and the architect took the subsidence into account when doing the plans (we also informed our insurance company we were putting in a loft).

I am of the opinion that an underpinned house is sturdier - I would be as I live in one! Other houses in our terrace (the two next to us were underpinned, the end one wasn't) been sold since we moved in with no apparent problems.

If you like the house then go ahead.

[sophiesofa]

Thank you m golden, it's reassuring. Was the underpinning reflected in the purchase price?

We're also hoping to do a loft conversion in the future - ideally to square off to the side of the house (others on the road have) to make it larger - we are aware this will of course add more weight so may mean extra works to take the weight.

I've done a preliminary bit of research on the insurance side of things and it should be fine. Our main concern is the potential difficulty in selling on and whether we are overpaying. I think selling on will be a bit less straightforward than normal, but obviously not impossible and I guess there's no definitive answer on the value side of things. The surveyor will hopefully be able to help with that side of things.

Thanks again

[KidKruger]

Perhaps when it comes to selling-on you could get a BTL mortgage, releasing 75% of the equity anyway, so you can still move on.

[MGolden]

Hi sophiesofa - when we bought our house we offered slightly under the asking price. The house was empty and they had already had a sale fall through the day before exchange of contract so we took a bit of a gamble that they would want a quick sale. But, as I said in my earlier post, that was 15 years ago and the two houses that have been sold in the past couple of years have gone for the same sort of price as other houses in the street that aren't on a terrace with a lot of underpinning.

[sophiesofa]

Thanks both. Kk yes I suppose that is a good back up plan.

We got a little off the asking price as we only have one person behind us in the chain and the house is vacant. Similar story - previous buyer got to the day before exchange then lost his job so it's been empty for quite a while now. We had our offer accepted before it was properly on the market this time, we did get slightly carried away and went above our planned budget, but we can still afford it. Before this underpinning thing we were happy with what we were paying. Now we've had a little reassurance about the underpinning value side of things we're less worried.

We went and had another look around the area today, did some standing outside the house looking a bit suspicious! We have decided we're happy to go ahead (as long as the survey goes ok etc.). No house is ever going to be perfect. It's taken the shine off it a bit, but we're still excited about the prospect of living there. We're planning on being there for the foreseeable future; it would be different if we were buying it with more is a short term view.

This forum really is excellent. Google had failed but the edf was/is excellent. Thank you!

[JDR]

Interestingly I was talking to a structural engineer ( we had floating chimneys) as an immediate but unconnected neighbour has subsidence. His opinion was underpinned houses are a better bet than those not done but stigma/ fear make people worry. Good luck

[sophiesofa]

Thanks jdr