Subsidence and Creep sounds like a Dickensian firm of cowboy surveyors. Add Rotate to form a trio and it begins to sound more like a horror film.
They are certainly the stuff of nightmares to UK home owners, tempering hopes for a lovely summer with worry that the house will collapse about their ears, if there is no rain. Insurance companies are expecting a bumper crop of claims for subsidence this year, possibly equalling that of 1991, when it reached 540 m.
Britain experienced the driest January in 200 years, according to the Meteorological Office and the weather since has been un-Britishly balmy. A sprinkler ban is threatened in many parts, in spite of the heavy falls of the past few days.
More From This Section
Dried-up river beds and receding reservoirs make sensational photographs and stoke fears of cracking walls and frightening builders bills.
In fact, says Suzanne Moore of the British Association of Insurers, often, when moisture returns a property readjusts. You might get a few cracks which are not serious. If we were to leap in and underpin the building and then the moisture returned, you could end up worse off. It is more likely the insurers will monitor the situation over a period of months to see whether it really is subsidence.
On the bright side, adds Moore, every time an old house is underpinned, it reduces the stock of properties which are vulnerable because there is a finite number. New houses tend to have deeper foundations. Not much consolation for the Britton family of Ripon, North Yorkshire, in their seven-year old detached house which is threatened with collapse. Their garden and garage disappeared earlier this year into a gaping hole and the Brittons have since spent 20,000 in legal fees taking action against their lenders, the previous owners and the estate agent/surveyor. Underground gypsum deposits in the area dissolve on contact with water.
Clay soil attracts most of the blame, with London and south-east England attracting higher insurance premiums as a result. Insurance companies base their premiums on the number of claims per post code. But, says the Subsidence Claims Advisory Bureau, which specialises in offering cover to people whose houses have been underpinned, this is tarring many with the same brush.
According to its research, in 79 per cent of the cases, the culprits are trees. Leaking drains account for a further small, but significant percentage. So if your neighbours claim because their willow caused their house to subside, you pay the penalty too. Some houses, suggests the SCAB, are virtually uninsurable because they fall into a high risk post code. It would help, it suggests, if garden centres took more trouble to explain to customers which trees and shrubs should be planted well away from the house. It should not be beyond the wit of the insurance companies to sponsor a leaflet naming potential trouble makers - and suggesting alternatives - available at the point of sale.
When you go to view a house, the garden is almost the last thing you look at, says Chris Jordan of SCAB, whose premiums are set at 20 per cent above conventional rates (it claims these drop over three years).
It charges 150 plus VAT to survey your cracks, which may or may not be serious. You could, points out Jordan, just have creep. On most policies there is a big excess, usually around 1,000 or 1,500. But ever soothing Moore takes an optimistic view. If there is a very large tree nearby, a bit of pruning can help resolve the problem. The huge numbers of claims should be taken in context too. In 1995 (a hot summer) 326 million was paid out on 44,700 subsidence claims. In 1996 it was 331 million paid out in 47,300 claims. The recovery of the property market and a subsequent increase in surveys is bound to boost the numbers. To add insult to injury, underpinning can blight a house as far as buyers are concerned. Even though it might be in better condition than one which has not been. Illogical, but inescapable.
If the buyers do not take fright first, the valuation surveyor might. Erring on the side of extreme caution, keeps the surveyors own professional insurance liability premiums down. Without a good survey, full insurance cover will not generally be offered and lenders will not stump up the mortgage. It does not happen often, but the problem can reoccur, usually when there has been a partial underpinning and the building rotates. An alternative to conventional underpinning, suggests Jordan, is the hoopsafe, which works like a barrel being held together by the tension of the hoops. A thick steel rod is put round the house like a girdle.
It is about half the cost of conventional underpinning, but is mainly used on the civil side, or local authority building.
Whatever way you look at it, its underpinning, says Martin Verrell, head of Knight Franks surveying department. One question often asked is if the house didnt move in the hot summer of 1976, surely itll get through anything? But I think of it as a ratchet system. If the house clicks down a notch, it wont click back up, but it may click down a few more over the years.
The danger signs to look for, says Verrell, are: accelerating hairline cracks. Notify the insurance company at once so they cant say later you didnt tell them in time to take action to stop it getting worse; especially watch out for the snagging of wallpaper, or where skirting boards join one another Particularly if you have decorated and filled in cracks but the filler has fallen out; a door which was previously freely openable seizes up although it could be due to another reason. In winter central heating dries everything out; a window not opening, or a pane cracking for no apparent reason: the frame could be moving; a floor sinking inexplicably. Often the floor will give a clue before the walls; n outside paths abutting the house cracking.
If you are worried, says Verrell, call in a friendly surveyor to check it out. Preferably not Heave, Subsidence and Creep.