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Owners of freehold or leasehold houses that are underpinned – work done to correct problems associated with subsidence – could find it more challenging to sell their home compared to conventional properties. This guide walks you through the issues involved with selling an underpinned home, but also offers tips on still getting a fair and speedy offer from a buyer.
- What is an underpinned property?
- Why an underpinned home can be harder to sell
- Can buyers get a mortgage for an underpinned property?
- Do you need to disclose that you house is underpinned when selling?
- Your options to find a buyer for an underpinned home
- Top questions about selling an underpinned property
What is an underpinned property?
Underpinning is work that is done on freehold or leasehold houses and other properties to correct for problems caused as a result of subsidence at the home that has either already happened or is currently happening, as detailed on Wikipedia.
Subsidence at your property, happens when there is a shift in the ground on which the house was constructed, and this leads to the property itself either moving or sinking. There are many potential causes behind why subsidence can occur at a home, but it is considered a major problem and one that could significantly complicate your ability to find a buyer for your property.
When you pursue underpinning at your property, the weaker soil will be removed from underneath the home in order to create space to install materials that are much stronger and will provide long-term stability for the structural integrity of the property.
Homeowners can choose from several different types of material to use for underpinning, including the use of reinforced concrete to reinforce or replace the home’s current footings, placing piles into the ground on more solid soil, a process known as jet grouting that will help make the soil on which the home was built stronger, and cantilever needle beams.
Underpinning can cost at least several thousand pounds but quickly become two or three times more expensive depending on the size of the home and the scale of the problem.
If your house has experienced subsidence and you have invested in underpinning work to correct the problem, you might find that there are additional barriers you face when later trying to sell the property. This guide offers important information on the possible difficulties involved, along with guidance on how to increase your odds of a buyer making a quick and fair offer.
Why an underpinned home can be harder to sell
Selling an underpinned leasehold or freehold house can be more challenging than trying to sell a conventional home without any subsidence problems for a number of reasons.
One of the main concerns that prospective buyers will have is about the stigma of owning a property where subsidence has happened in the past. They might worry that the work done to correct the issue was not of a decent quality and that this could lead to larger problems in the future, or they could fear that the subsidence could return at some later date, as the consumer advice website Home Selling Expert explains.
Another reason why trying to sell an underpinned house can be difficult is that the cost of getting a home insurance policy could be very high, particularly when compared to other homes that buyers might be interested in which have no history of any subsidence or underpinning. This could be enough to make buyers lose interest if they’re trying to keep their expenses low.
Underpinned properties might also be harder to attract buyers because they might think that the house will be hard to resell in the future once they are ready to move to their next dream home. In this scenario, this type of buyer might instead look for properties that do not have history of structural problems because they could think that these will be easier to sell at a later time.
Can buyers get a mortgage for an underpinned property?
An additional problem you might encounter could happen if a private buyer is interested in buying your underpinned house but would need a mortgage to cover the cost of the purchase.
Generally, mortgage providers should be willing to grant loans for people to buy underpinned homes, but several conditions will have to be met first. Among the requirements that the home loan lender will have are that an independent survey has found that the work done to complete the underpinning was of suitable quality, and that there is no current threat of more subsidence.
The reason why a mortgage lender will want this information is because they’ll need to be reassured that the house could be viable for reselling in the future. If the buyer defaults on their mortgage repayments then the lender could move to repossess the property so that they can sell it again and use the proceeds to recoup whatever balance is outstanding on the buyer’s mortgage.
If a home loan provider is worried about the structural integrity of the property and fears that the underpinning is of poor quality, or that more subsidence could easily occur in the future and pose a risk to the house, they are unlikely to grant a mortgage for the buyer and this will prevent the sale from happening, as the website sold.co.uk notes.
One way to avoid this situation entirely would be getting in touch with LDN Properties or any other legitimate quick home buying company, because they are experts at buying all types of properties "as is" in their current condition – and that includes underpinned houses.
It’s a simple way to get a quick and fair offer for your home without any mortgage complications, because quick buyers already have the funds in place to purchase most properties immediately.
Do you need to disclose that you house is underpinned when selling?
If you’re the owner of an underpinned freehold or leasehold house and you are aware that the home has either been underpinned before you bought it, or you invested in work to underpin it as the current owner, then you must tell buyers about this, as the website Property Road notes.
As part of the selling process, you’ll be required to complete a TA6, also known as a Property Information Form. This is a comprehensive document that will contain extensive details about your property to inform prospective buyers, including such wide-ranging issues as boundary disputes, your knowledge of any plans for property development in the area, and structural issues with the home.
It’s your legal duty to fill out the TA6 as honestly and to the best of your knowledge as possible. If you knowingly conceal information like underpinning from someone that buys your home and then discovers it after they become the new owner, they could file litigation against you.
Instead of risking any lawsuit in the future, be upfront with potential buyers and let them know about the underpinning at your house. The TA6 form is also an ideal place to disclose whether you know of any future risk of subsidence at the home, which buyers should be told about.
Your options to find a buyer for an underpinned home
As soon as you are prepared to sell your freehold or leasehold underpinned house, you will need to decide on which method to use in order to try and find a buyer.
Generally, your choices are among selling to a quick home buyer, selling with an estate agent, selling on your own or selling at a property auction. There are pros of certain approaches, such as not having to pay a fee when using a genuine no-fee quick home buyer, and cons with other methods, for example possibly having to wait more than a year when selling without any help.
To identify the ideal selling approach for your unique situation, review the details of the four methods below and then compare them against your top goals with selling your home, such as how long you are willing to wait to get an offer, your preferred sale price, whether you are prepared to pay any commission to sell the property, and any other relevant factors. This should help with narrowing down the choices to the one method that best matches these needs.
Selling to a quick home buyer
Selling with an estate agent
You won’t have to put in much effort when selling through an estate agent, because they will handle most of the important tasks, which begins with preparing a listing that describes your underpinned home and features photographs of the inside and outside. They will advertise this listing online, in local newspapers and in their office, and organise viewings to take prospective buyers on tours of your property, and hopefully guide a serious offer to completion.
For doing all of this work, the typical estate agent will make you pay commission often based whatever sale price you’re able to get for your property. This will increase your overall selling costs because the fee will be deducted immediately from the final sale proceeds after contracts have been exchanged.
This is also not the quickest method available for selling a property, because it could take more than a year to find a genuine buyer. And remember that even if you get a serious offer, the potential buyer could rescind the offer without facing any penalties, so long as contracts have not yet been exchanged on your property. In that situation you would face further delay with selling your home because you would need to start again with trying to find a buyer.
You might also find that some estate agents have zero experience with selling an underpinned house, and this suggests that they could struggle to get buyers interested in your home. Always ask individual estate agents if they have managed to sell a home with underpinning in the past, and avoid using the services of any company that has not managed to do so before.
Selling on your own
Alternatively, you might want to sell your home without any assistance, which puts the burden on you to handle every step – from creating and advertising a listing through to organising viewings and fielding offers from buyers, ideally taking one to exchange of contracts.
This will require a significant amount of your time and won’t be something that you can just do in your spare time, and it might also be very stressful. That’s why this approach to selling is only recommended if you have a qualified family member or friend who has expertise selling homes and is willing to help you without charge, or if you have already have such direct experience.
Perhaps the only clear advantage of this method of selling is that you won’t have to pay any commission to an auctioneer or estate agent, which helps to reduce your overall costs.
But you can achieve this exact same welcome result by selling your home to a no-fee quick buyer like LDN Properties, yet with the added benefit of being able to complete the sale of your house within a few short weeks, rather than the many months or longer it can sometimes take when attempting to sell a freehold or leasehold underpinned house without any assistance.
Selling at a property auction
Much like estate agents, auctioneers will take on the responsibility for most of the work required to sell your home, including preparing and marketing the listing, and hosting the auction.
In exchange for doing all of this work, the usual auctioneer will require that you pay commission based on your home’s final auction sale price. This fee will be subtracted from the sale proceeds straight away, which will boost your total selling costs.
You might want to ask individual auctioneers whether they are willing to reduce the amount of commission that they’ll charge you, or at least have the winning high bidder responsible for paying some of your selling expenses, because this can help with lowering your costs.
If you’re looking to save money when selling then you should review some of the other options available, including selling to a zero-commission quick home buyer like LDN Properties.
There’s no promise that you house will sell at the auction, and if it does not receive any bids then you will have to start again with trying to find a buyer, delaying a final sale even further.
You will have to pick a reserve price, which is the lowest value at which you agree to sell your home. Ensure that you opt for a reserve price that should still produce some profit from the auction even after you have paid whatever fees you owe, otherwise you could end up in the unfortunate situation of either selling at a loss or only just breaking even with the sale.
Selling through an auction is also a fairly slow process, starting with a wait of many weeks or even months between the day on which you decide to sell your house and the day on which the auction is held. Even if your property manages to sell at that auction, the winning top bidder will then often have about 28 days to sign all of their required legal paperwork and complete the other steps necessary to finalise the sale of your underpinned property to them.
Some auctioneers might give the buyer even more time than 28 days to complete these tasks, whilst other companies could set a shorter deadline. If you’re looking for a faster sale, you can ask specific auction houses if they might be willing to reduce the amount of time the buyer has.
Top queries and answers about selling an underpinned house
Homeowners thinking of selling fast may have some questions to be dealt with, ranging from the condition a property should be in before selling through to selling a house with structural problems. Here are some questions we’re asked when selling an underpinned house:
Your top questions when selling an underpinned house
A number of factors help to explain why it can be more difficult to find a buyer for a freehold or leasehold property that has underpinning, including concerns from potential buyers about the potential for future subsidence to occur or worries about how hard it will be to sell the home later. Other buyers may lose interest in your home because of the stigma with underpinning.
You could contact a no-fee quick buyer like LDN Properties, because these companies specialise in making competitive and speedy offers to purchase almost any type of property, including underpinned houses. They take just a few weeks to complete the process of buying a home, compared to other methods that might take many months or even a full year.
You can ask them for proof that they are registered with a third party organisation known as The Property Ombudsman (TPO), which issues rules to protect owners against falling for scams in the quick home buying industry. All legitimate TPO members must commit to following these rules, so you should have complete peace of mind when selling to a TPO-registered company.
If you decide to sell your underpinned house using the services of an estate agent or auctioneer, then you will have to pay them commission that will be subtracted immediately from the final sale proceeds. But if you instead opt for using a no-fee quick home buyer or selling without any help, you’ll keep your selling costs low by not having to pay any commission.
Whenever a freehold or leasehold house is suffering from subsidence, there’s a risk that the building will move or sink into the ground because of weak soil on which it was constructed. Underpinning involves removing some of that soil and replacing it with much stronger material that is designed to correct the problem and guard against any future subsidence.
There are several different options available for underpinning a house, including the use of concrete beams and bars to shore up a property’s foundations, jet grouting, installing piles in more solid soil than the ground where the subsidence is occurring, and a few other methods that vary in how much they cost and other factors such as the amount of work involved.
