As of 1971, insurance policies began to cover the damage from ground movement. The policies define ground movement to include not only subsidence but also heave, landslip, and water damage caused by leaks from underground drainage or water supply services. The movement and damage affect buildings and their structures.
Several factors may lead to significant foundation movement. For one, loose, granular, or sandy soils can adversely affect groundwater and lead to settlement, which is also known colloquially as “sinking.” This problem hardly ever occurs in the absence of human activity, such as housing development, road building, or the mining of metals, minerals, and fossil fuels. Even when development and mining are finished, the places where they happened often continue to subside, and engineers have found it very difficult to make a long-range forecast of the amount that will be sunk or the prospect of when it will stop.
Subsidence policies are designed to cover when the ground beneath a building sinks, causing structural damage. But this is not a straightforward matter when it comes to making a claim, as the policies are not standardised, and the interpreting of “subsidence” can vary.
Because our panel of CIOB, RPSA and RICS surveyors inspects so many subsidence problems, they almost always have the opportunity to guide insurers, loss adjusters appointed by the insurers, and the insured about the technical and engineering elements of subsidence claims. If your claim involves our panel of surveyors, they will provide advice based on their primary role: structural engineers who are consultative as well as “forensic” in nature.
For your surveyor to work effectively, they must maintain constant communication with the parties that matter throughout the crucial phases of any project. This is because the communication of you and your surveyor together with all the parties that matter is vital for you all to agree on what’s next for further investigations and anything else that might have to be done.
The reason that the communication of you and your surveyor is so vital is that a subsidence investigation and its necessary repairs can involve a fair amount of money; normally, your insurance will handle this, but the event has to qualify as an insured event.
The majority of constructions experience a certain level of movement and damage, yet this does not necessarily derive from ground or foundation shifts. It may stem from causes like thermal expansion/contraction or shrinkage.
The subsidence report contains these sections:
A conclusion is drawn with the relevant recommendations for remedial action to ensure further subsidence is prevented.
By surveying the ground and its various layers, experts can ascertain many things about it. For one, they can determine its geological make-up—that is, what kinds of rocks and sediment it contains and how those diverse materials interact with one another both in their natural state and when disturbed by human activity.
More than that, subsurface experts such as geologists and geotechnical engineers can tell us about the relatively recent history of an area on the basis of what they find underground. Surveyors know a great deal about the geological history of our planet and even quite a bit about the deep subsurface of our immediate regions because of the kinds of detailed investigations our experts carry out on a regular basis.
It may not be possible to determine the nature or extent of any foundational movement just by studying the cracks. To really get an idea of what might be going on with the structure’s foundation, a full investigation of the site and the surrounding area is called for. This means checking out the kinds of soil and the way water behaves in it, both through and around the foundation and down to bedrock, if there is any. The structural engineer who works for you may want to do this checking himself, using an assortment of methods.
Besides fluctuating water levels, your surveyor must look at environmental factors to see what else might be causing the ground to move in Notting Hill. For your purposes, the risk posed by trees and their roots is probably the most significant. The soil is certainly a factor, with a high concentration of moisture making our clay-rich subsurface an attractive sedimentary environment.
Foundation stabilization and underpinning are necessary when a house shows signs of subsidence. When you start digging into the cause of the problem, you find that it usually stems from one of three things: poor drainage, which can lead to water pooling where it’s not supposed to; poor ventilation that can cause oversized trees to wreak havoc with the roots; or just the failure of the construction materials themselves. Put these things together, and you’ve got potential trouble with the groundwater that’s just beneath your feet.
Similar to excavating the ground, underpinning also has to give due regard to the likely impact on neighbouring buildings or structures. Where there is ground movement affecting the building or structure, remedial work to strengthen the affected building or structure is possible if the ground movement is due to the failure of a retaining wall, landslip, slope instability, or creep.
The ways in which retaining walls and ground slope stabilization are constructed have the advantage that they do not require the kind of deep foundations that demand extensive earth-moving efforts.
When the remedial work is underway, it is necessary for your surveyor or engineer to have either complete control or part control over the work. Either way, it is absolutely essential that they ensure the work is carried out in accordance with the project agreement and the remedial scheme.
Following the successful completion of the work, the surveyor or engineer must sign off on the work as part of the overall successful remediation project.
The scheme recommended to fix the problem is to repair the damage done to the building or structure. Of course, your surveyor or engineer will also advise on stabilizing the foundation, and that might involve some pretty major work—underpinning, major structural repairs, anchorages for retaining walls, injection grouting, specialized groundworks, and so on.
The selection of contractors who submitted tenders for the building contract controls the remedial program, allowing the program to remain on course. The selection of best-priced is essential to the quality of the program’s outcome. Paying the contractors at the right times until they achieve practical completion has been equally important to keep the project on track as well.
Usually, insurers are not very agreeable to paying the bill for a domestic engineer. That is because domestic engineers, like any good professionals, usually cost a lot to hire.
The initial step in the procedure involves the Notting Hill leaseholders creating a company (the nominee purchaser) of which they are all members and then designating a purchaser. In the initial Notice, the leaseholders state certain foundational facts about themselves, as the flat owners, and about the building. They name an independent surveyor of their choice and cite a figure (substantially below the freeholder’s initial asking price) that they are offering for the freehold. This Notice is served on the freeholder, who then has 2 months to respond with a counter-notice.
When the nominee purchaser and the freeholder can not come to an agreement, the leaseholders can take the matter to the tribunal. The tribunal’s jurisdiction is set out in the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993. Under this legislation, if leaseholders want to buy the freehold to a building, the price must be determined by an independent tribunal if direct negotiations fail. This process is necessary because, as with any negotiation, the two sides start from different positions. The freeholder usually bases the amount demanded on a very high figure, while the leaseholders want to pay a low and reasonable price. The steps are therefore:
The Full Building Survey report includes the following:
When it comes to the detail that the surveyor will go into concerning defects, repairs, and maintenance, the Homebuyer Survey is fairly standard. Full Building Surveys, however, are more refined and go into more detail about possible and likely defects. Repairs and maintenance are covered in more detail. The Survey cost depends on the age, size, and value of the property.
The analysis they undertake is a visual inspection. This means that, for the most part, the building components that can be seen will be looked at and assessed in accordance with the surveyor’s remit. The Home Survey Report will show you the visible defects and then go on to discuss the kinds of partially hidden or totally hidden defects that the surveyor thinks you should be aware of. It will also try to clarify what kinds of repair work need to be done and the nature of the repairs. The survey is effectively a way to consider “defects” and their potential impact on the building.
A Building Survey Report contains the most important information for understanding the condition of a property. The surveyors that undertake the work follow a set procedure. The first part of the report contains a general overview of the property and its surroundings. The second part details the major and minor problems with the property’s components, inside and out. These problems range from serious structural defects to issues with doors or windows that don’t close properly, and everything in between. The report is written in clear English, complemented by diagrams and photographs. If any of the problems found are what a surveyor might consider important, that’s what the report indicates—using clear and unambiguous language.
Surveyors usually use a tick box to indicate methods of repair when drafting a building survey report. They are also required to comment on the timescale of any repairs. A condition rating is typically included: what needs to be addressed immediately, what is in the process of deteriorating but is in reasonable condition, and what has not deteriorated at all.
A building surveyor is responsible for a variety of checks and tests during a building inspection. These could be checks or tests for damp and woodworm, or they could be visual inspections of the building’s structure. In building surveying, there are visual inspections of roofs – checking for tiles and slates (if applicable) and also checking for leadwork (if applicable) and looking at the junctions between roof and wall. If the wall structure has brick in it, the surveyor will visually check for any “spalling” (brick breaking apart visibly) and any bulging (brick failing to hold its place visibly), for example.
If defects need fixing immediately, then the options recommended for this survey specify what to repair and give some idea of how long the problem has existed. For the most part, this survey describes recommended repair approaches that are standard in the industry and that do not require excessive expenditure. Future maintenance is also discussed, including what to expect when the problem being surveyed is not repaired and what to expect with repairs that are made but with questionable methodology.
Your surveyor will explain some of the legal aspects of purchasing the building, covering—in as much or as little detail as you desire, and their implications, but this is subject to your solicitor verifying.
You might consider having a separate market valuation done to determine whether the property’s asking price is warranted. You’ll also need a reinstatement cost valuation for insurance reasons.
RICS’s industry guidelines suggest building surveys for properties that are large, very old, in some disrepair, or have unusual features. Building surveys are also recommended if you plan to do any significant renovations or extensions.
If you’re purchasing a relatively modern home that’s in decent shape and built to ordinary standards, then a Home Buyer Survey is an acceptable choice. If you want the assurance of an inspection and report that are pretty much guaranteed to turn up any issues that might be hidden or just hard to see, then you should go for a Full Building Survey instead.
The Full Building Survey is more detailed; it is more specifically tailored to the property your surveyor would be inspecting. It also comes with more advice on the visible defects found and on the potential hidden defects that they suspect may be present. Your surveyor will illustrate reports with photographs so that you can clearly see what has been discovered. Both the Home Buyer and Full Building Surveys describe the repairs needed, the order in which the repairs should be done, and the kind of “maintenance measures” that will be required to keep the property in good condition.
A HomeBuyer Report does include a market valuation as well as reinstatement costs. However, a Full Building Survey does not. The main reason for the differences in what is and isn’t included in the two types of reports is how focused the reports are on the condition of the property. The Full Building Survey is the most in-depth and comprehensive survey of a property that you can have done.
If you suspect subsidence, the first thing to do is get in touch with a specialist. For most people, this will mean contacting your home insurance company, as policies typically cover problems that arise from subsidence. Once you have done that, a surveyor will be appointed to investigate the issue. Your inspector will then contact your local authority (at least in England and Wales) to get access to historical records. These records are pertinent because they help establish whether there are long-standing problems with the property that predate the current owner’s occupancy.
A panel of surveyors who specialize in subsidence works in Notting Hill. They survey and investigate the cause and condition of structures that have subsided. Sometimes, a proposal is made to supplement the original construction.
Looking for a Chartered Surveyor? If you are buying a property, contact us for a building survey. Our panel of CIOB, RPSA and RICS surveyors will help you with the Level 2 or Level 3 property survey you need in Notting Hill. We can also assist you in Red Book Valuations, Party Wall Awards and other services. Reach out to us today for building surveyors, valuers and party wall surveyors in London!
