undder pinned houses...
 

We have just viewed a house and was told that we should be able to get it for £210,000 as its been underpinned.....
It's currently at £240,000 and needs everything. It's cleanish but everything needs replacing.

It's big and seems Very good but heres the thing.. I would never buy a cat C car even with proof it's as safe as houses. So should I with a house>???

same as a car mate,
ie, dosn't bother some people but 80% would not touch it, :nono:
the damage is allready done underneath the plaster/wall paper/paint ect ect.
£160,000- £180,000 i would say, how long has it been on the market ?
Shaun.

Think it depends on why it been underpined, you might have problems insuring it too, might be advisable to speak to your home insurance about it :)

mate under pinning can cost a lot of money i had a house recently that had serious subsidence and needed 40k worth of under pinning it was worth 200k in good nic we finally sold it for 120k cash buyer. as the right price an if you have cash then go for it. if I was buying something like that I would expect a good premium left over after doing all the work, it has to be worth it basically

I have seen underpinning required from DIY dipsh1ts digging out cellers for head room :D

Personally I wouldn't invest in a property where the main building is underpinned.

Thank you for your replies. it was underpinned by a well known company - all the paper work is there. Where it is is on a clay base but there used to be an old brook running through it. 6years ago they had to underpin it.

The sale of the house has fallent hrough twice before but the estate agent said it's because the previous agents didn't tell them it was underpinned and when the buyer got their surveys they had a nasty suprise.

We are going to the banks & calling the insurance at the weekend to get their feedback but if we can get it for a steal then I could be tempted...

If it's got a good guarantee, it's been done properly, and there are now no obvious signs of movement (have a good look at all the external walls for cracks, use binoculars if necessary) then I wouldn't necessarily put me off. Get a quote for buildings insurance first as that could be extortionate, however if you've got insurance then you covered for any further subsidence so why worry :)

And of course use it as a bargaining tool ;)

Depends on what caused the subsidance.

For example I know a house that subsided because a piped stream that ran along side the house collapsed. This chaged the water table severely which in turn shifted the foundations on the gable end of the house.

Pipe was repaired and gable end underpinned. Brickwork repointed or replaced: Problem sorted. The house is 50 years old - as is the piped stream, so its safe to say so long as the pipe doesn't collapse again, it'll be fine. And this could affect any house with a storm drain or sewer (pretty much all houses then).

Obviously there are houses that need underpining due to poor build quality; There is a load by me where the semi attached garages fell away from the main building because the foundataions were too shallow (and also made it impossible to build and extension on top of the garage). 90% of these houses have been underpinned either to fix subsidence or to allow an extension.

Underpinning is just replacing foundations, or making them deeper. Whats done on top (i.e the brickwork) is repointing and replacement. Underpinning itself is not really like repairing a cat C car. Its more like replacing the road that the car drives on (whilst the car is still on top of it :D ). So once sorted its safe to put what you like on top of it. However the repair of shifted or cracked brickwork is liek repairing a car, as obviously thats the bit that aways gets damaged because of a shifted foundatation (like a car falling into a giant pothole ;) ).

So in the end the crux is how extensive was the damage and well has the damaged brickwork been repaired, bearing in mind, if movement was too severe, a whole section of a house maybe replaced rather than repaired. For example; my uncles house (new build) had to have the entire (attahed) garage demolished becuase the foundatation were too weak and it was the more cost method effective than underpinning (and he saw it as an opertunity to get a bigger garage :norty: ).

Here's your starting bargaining tool then, should be easy to get down in the current market.

A previously underpinnned house wouldn't put me off as long as it was done properly. One advantage you will have - assuming it IS done properly - is that there will probably have been extensive site investigation and engineering reports, and the underpinning will have been designed for that house and that site. Once it has been fixed it will be in a better state of repair than many other houses and much less prone to movement in the future.

It's one of these words that puts fear into peoples mind when buying a house - like the words "dry rot" - but as long as it has been fixed properly and the cause rectified there's nothing to really worry about. Mind you, banks aren't known for their building expertise and they are risk-averse (not a good combination - fear and ignorance), so getting a mortgage might be slightly more difficult.

A good point to consider: if you purchsed a house that wasn't underpinned, yet the identical house next door had been underpinned - which house would consider to be more stable in the long term future?

It would be a difficult house to sell in the future and if it's cheap and your a cash buyer no Morgage it could be a good buy for say 160k no more and you plan to keep it forever but it can go again and underpinning can cost over £1000 per metre maybe a lot more now when I did it it was cheap as I shored it up with slate but a professional company can go down 6 metres and the bill will be a fortune

Also what else is wrong with the house roof prehaps

Be careful unless you have money to spend all the time on it

I spent over 70k putting my last 1928 house right