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I agree with this.
Some underpinning can be a real warning sign but if there is some movement which is fixed by underpinning and there is obviously no further movement, how is that a negative?
Clearly it needs to be documented correctly to prove it was done properly.
We've had some movement in our house since we had a French tray installed last Christmas. It's probably the water table readjusting but if there is further movement in the next year we will have to have the house monitored by our building insurers.
Bainbridge-
but if there is some movement which is fixed by underpinning and there is obviously no further movement, how is that a negative?
Yeah, we were happy to proceed on this basis. Took a lot of hours and a lot of phone calls to get there though. It requires sophisticated and committed buyers to reach that conclusion.
Randomly I was doing some hobby work for a fella who runs an underpinning company. I asked him, and to be fair, it was context-free, 'should I buy an underpinned house?', and his response was 'short answer: no'. The long answer was if you can find out what caused it, what was done to remedy it and when it was done, and then if you can rule out any further movement (hard), then you should negotiate.
Other people who worked in property mirrored that. Our solicitors shit the bed when it came up on the property searches. Really felt like proceeding (without an allowance) was like trying to swim up a waterfall.
Howard
Mine is definitely subsiding. Unbeknown to me on purchase, but later told by a neighbour there was a big Plane Tree in front of our house that was removed by the council 2-3 years ago and there are also very large trees behind the house but are at least 10m away.
If you walk up the road every single bay window has cracked some more than others so I suspect there is also a water table issue at play. I'd welcome the house being underpinned. I suspect that under pinning will become more and more common as not only do houses age but get heavier as extensions go on upper floors. It might be seen as a positive in circa 10 years.