subsidence and a crap insurance company

flipper1

After decorating most of my home and now seeing most of whats done crack and move, i'm now caught in a battle with my insurance company about subsidence. They have sent round a surveyor(my mum could have done a better job) who looked at my property over a year ago and the reccomendation was to fill the cracks and regrout tiles etc.. a year later the problem is 20 times worse serious movement so they take out a large tree and then issue me with a plan of works. Which obviously falls well short of what i want done. And now there is a problem with my upstairs bay window. The insurance company say that the movement to this is down to lack of support in the new windows - and the weight of the new windows. I've still got 2 years left on a warranty that I inherited when i brought the property but i will have to change over the details.
can anyone offer some advice on my next step. should i let the insurance and window people fight it out and how can i get maximum repair work for my £1000 excess - any help is most welcome!
Happy new year!

EdSet100 · Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 1:26 am Post Subject:

You don't pay a £1,000 as some sort of payment to get the maximum repair work out of them. You pay the £1,000 only as part of the costs of repairs due to subsidence, which can run into many thousands of pounds. The £1,000 is not there to sort out some cracks around your house, which can be caused by any number of things.

The bottom line is this: has the surveyor actually confirmed that you have subsidence? Subsidence is movement of the ground, causing the building to move, and not the building (heavy windows) causing part of itself to move. Therefore, the assertion that the windows are causing more cracks is irrelevant unless you do not have subsidence.

Your insurance company's surveyor's first action should have been to engage an engineer to excavate an area close to your foundations by the cracks to determine if the ground is stable by examining stratae and underground channels caused by water movement or collapse caused by moisture removal due to trees, etc. If there is no evidence of subsidence, your claim has reached its conclusion and you get to keep your £1,000. If there is evidence of subsidence, you put £1,000 into the pot and the surveyor will commission tradesmen to mitigate against further movement (remove trees, fix drains, etc), or if mitigation is impossible, engage specialists to underpin to the bedrock below the troubled strata.

The issue of heavy windows is entirely another possible cause of other cracks which is not a claim for subsidence and therefore might not require you to stump up the excess of £1,000. It will be up to the insurance company surveyor to determine if the cracks are caused by damage through negligence or accident and to then pay for the repairs. If they can find the party responsible for causing the damge thats their problem to resolve. In the meantime they have an obligation to you to repair the cracks

imamartian · Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 1:40 am Post Subject:

sell the property as is?

we're at the peak of a house price bonanza.... what you get could buy you a whole lot more in 12 months?

memor maplin · Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:55 pm Post Subject:

The Large tree sounds mature so it wouldn't have been that much of a problem.
Now the tree has gone the moisture it sucked up (considerable) has no where to go so in the winter you'll get heave. This causes cracks.
They should have trimmed it back first. Then left it a year before completely removing.
The best way to get action is to phone the insurance company every day. If the Agent suddenly is out or in a meeting phone his manger and go up the chain of command till you get satisfaction.

Its the ones who make a pest of themselves that get anything done.

Joe Malone · Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 1:55 pm Post Subject:

This whole case sounds a little strange to me.

Am i getting this right? First they tell you you've got nothing more than settlement cracks above windows due to inadequate support. I'm assuming the windows have been changed at some point from timber to UPVc.

When the movement continues they cut down a tree without any further investigation?

The first course of action in these cases is always to establish whether the movement is static or dynamic and that must be done by using tell tales or stainless steel studs on the cracks. These are measured for movement every month for at least six months, ideally a year. Settlement cracks above windows are pretty obvious and what you're looking for in cases of subsidence is some degree of rotational movement of a proven dynamic nature. When this has been established then you would start further invasive examinations such as digging trial pits or soil analysis.

It isn't sensible to cut down a tree which is linked to subsidence problems. The starting point would be to pollard the tree back then continue crack monitoring to establish what effect this is having.

It doesn't sound as if the basic sensible steps have been taken in establishing the cause of your problem or managing the situation.

^woody^ · Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:18 pm Post Subject:

Joe you are missing the point. "Sensible" and "insurance company" do not go together at all, and its bad grammar to use both in the same sentance

Joe Malone · Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:44 pm Post Subject:

Woody, you're such a cynic!

andy2306 · Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 5:20 pm Post Subject:

imamartian wrote:

sell the property as is?

we're at the peak of a house price bonanza.... what you get could buy you a whole lot more in 12 months?

Building costs up 27%!!!

All the best builders down in london building for the olympics!!

House prices are unlikely to fall much if you factor these 2 facts in, Infact its more likely to remain bouyent!!