Heating is working a treat!

If L&G come up trumps walking away would be foolish, its already a good price, the closest alternative is over £30k more for a modern ish 4 bed thing on a naff culdisac.

The problem is that as the work was done in 1991 it didn’t require the same sign off paperwork as it would do today and shepherd gilmour who managed it on behalf of the insurers hold no records, neither do the insurers so hopefully the fact the mortgage values/surveyor hasn’t picked up any signs of movement should suffice!

I’ll keep you posted!

not read all the posts, i have just bought a 1880’s house that had a porch and extension(single story) in the 70’s and the foundations where botched and it sank,was rectified in 1991 and 1996, AXA will insure any property so long as subsidence or corrective work is over 10 years old, cost me £175 for building compared to 600 odd quoted from specialists

Walk away. It will be an Arse to sell in future. It’s cheap for a reason. You could get the seller to get you an indemnity policy to cover it. We did this for our house with a through lounge diner with no records. Not sure you can indemnify againt subsidence tho. Your solicitor should be advising you on the risks of purchase if not you need to ask them.

Either that or get more money off. They obviously hid this from you for a reason.

1990s Arnt that long ago. We keep good records from that time at our civil engineering firm. It’s odd there are no records.

Our house had been underpinned about 20 years before we bought it (common on our road). It was re-surveyed 10 years later showing no signs of movement. With all the certificates to prove this, we haven’t had a problem. Currently insured with Nationwide. You really need the certificates showing work carried out and the survey showing no further movement. I appreciate in your situation you may not have the time to get this done.

Hope it works out for you, we had a nightmare with insurers (even the people who were insuring for the existing owner wouldn’t help) until someone recommended L&G to us. Although these days any underpinning works (or any structural works) would come with paperwork/guarantees/insurance etc. but for work done years ago you’ll be lucky to find the name of the builders who did it.

There has been lots of good advice given, especially around the future risks of selling on etc. I would suggest considering these points of view long and hard, make sure you are making the right decision for you now and in the future.

RM.

Right update time!

Insurance initially declined from L&G due to time work was done so needed to pass all paperwork i had emailed to me on to the broker.

When going through everything with a fine tooth comb as i was fuming i discovered a small section on foundations on the plans for the extension. It basically specced a foundation required and drew attention that the original extension was underpinned in 1991, not the house as we were told. And in actual fact no work was carried out to the extension in 2003 as we were informed. So getting excited/thourghly pi££ed off at this point i managed to speak to the Building control manager at teh council who took the time to go through everything and confirm no work had been carried out to underpin the extension in 2003 and that only once had underpinning work been undertaken to rectify the extension which had subsided basically as it was something that Jack built and in retrospect should have been knocked down and replaced (as it would have been less than £13K to do this in 1991).

So with this i was able to go back to L&G and they will insure us and its £200 per year less than we pay now on a house of half the value (with bikes, all be it not great cover but enough).

So in short, solicitors didnt do their job and correctly review the documents, went with half a story which they didnt check out from the estate agents/me passing on what id been told and it led to this almighty nightmare.

So yes were buying the house and im very releived and selling it wont be an issue as we can easily and cheaply insure it and be open from the start, not lie/get facts completely wrong.

What a nightmare, but thankyou massively for the L&G heads up as this has saved us being homeless.

Now just to put a rocket up Countrywides arse! Literally! (any recommendations).