I wouldd be taking legal advice with the view to recovering drilling costs from the estate agents for mis representation etc....

Beats me how you can fix a 200 year old problem. You plug one hole, but whats beneath that one, and so on.

One thing or sure, no one will ever get a mortgage on that place.

If a solution has been engineered by a person qualified to do so. Probably a CEng, and it has been implemented and tested appropriately, the lender will be fine with it.

What it always comes down to is negligence, small print and insurance. As long as the lender is able to go through (preferably) several layers of PI insurance, they will be fine with it.

Lenders don't take risks and the risks they do take are underwritten by insurance.

Many people argue about and resent the fact that mining consultancy and remediation is merely insurance brokering for a lender.

It doesn't matter whether the lode is 0.767 meters wide, or if it was worked by Wheal Comford in 1842-56, or whether it's in granite, whether that was intruded or anything.

The cut and thrust of it is that if something screws up, someone's insurance will take the hit rather than the lender.

If you are a cash buyer, you really enter the whole arena of small print and slipperyness at your utter peril.

Anyone buying a property with cash would be well advised to seek out some reports, whether they are mining, flooding or whatever else and READ THE SMALL PRINT VERY CAREFULLY!!! I would admit to it being more slimy than David Cameron's EU referendum promise, but it's getting there.

I remember the good old days when Telegraph Hill (St Day) was on the move.

Lozz.

I was driving up Vicarage (with no Vicarage for obvious reasons) Hill and noted the area around Grigg's Shaft looking a bit "on the move". I think this opened up in the 30's to depth....Poldice Copper Lode IIRC.

I was driving up Vicarage (with no Vicarage for obvious reasons) Hill and noted the area around Grigg's Shaft looking a bit "on the move". I think this opened up in the 30's to depth....Poldice Copper Lode IIRC.

Hi bud, I seem to remember when Telegraph Hill was moving they poured a lot of concrete in but it still moved later on, from memory that was in the '70's, sub surface water can have a lot to do with it, it might have been the back of an old stope ?

There's a load of noddy boxes built close by now.

Lozz.

As Estate Agents they have 50 years combined experience. Five people 10 years each. None show any qualifications so I would rule RICS out.
There advert throws all to the Seller.
Ask for copy of report and look for Engineers name. No name keep looking.
A local builder set the workmen on of a reputable firm to vibro compact the ground using their firms equipment on a weekend. But the firm did not back it. In the end the NHBC paid out when the bungalow moved.
Leroy Van Dyke (I think) sang a song in my youth called, 'Just Walk On Bye'. In your case look round the corner.

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I'd have a bit more faith in everyone to do the right thing.

There is a lot of money in the processes behind selling a house and no-one would be wise to compromise their name in what is a very competitive market.

There are players at every level who are right there, waiting for someone to slip up, so they can increase their turnover. It would be like losing your place in a long queue if you oversaw something and people made a big deal out of it.

If you imagine a newspaper headline "Dodgy dealer diddles innocent family with nasty mine working riddled house" It would be instant game over locally. People have to be whiter than white in what is a competitive market with some seriously deflationary pressures.

I'd wait to see the report. Someone will have decided on a solution, someone will have put their name to it, Building Control would have turned up to see they were gunging the right house and all will be dandy.

If something does screw up, which is highly unlikely, someone's insurance will get nailed and the people who undertook that work will have considered that, before they put their names to anything.

Anyway, no-one has been ripped off yet. If I was the seller of the house, I would have got the house drilled and upped my price by the cost of the drilling. If it required remediation, I would have had the work undertaken and balanced the price rise with the loss myself. I would have even considered haggling with the remediation firm over some sort of deferred payment for the works.

If you sought to sell prior to drilling, the house would have been "worth" as much as the worst case scenario. ie:- a house which needs to be demolished and a building plot with a mining feature which needs remediating.

If you sought to sell prior to paying for the remediation works, the value would be minus the cost of that as well a "hassle penalty".

Having all the work done, the guy has a house with a piece of paper saying it's abandoned mine proof and if it isn't, the work is insured. One might philosophise over whether a house with this piece of paperwork is more valuable than one which may have an outside chance of a hole under it, but was not deemed necessary to have a search undertaken. Either way, the seller is probably going to lose out by a nadge.

It makes you wonder what took place at the original purchase....was it during the times of lenders not caring about the risks of working, or did someone get diddled....?

The alternative which is pretty popular, is that the owner lets it out and rents what is a pretty much unsaleable property at it's market value.

This is precisely what happened to me when I was renting in Redruth. 3 of the doors in the house started being a problem to close and one day I looked out the window and the back garden had disappeared.

Mine workings do not affect the rental potential of a building! Unless they have started causing problems.

I suppose it's the duty of care for the landlord to inform the agent and the agent to inform the tenent, but in the case of my agents (who had all the bits of paper and all the letters after their names) they just saw fit to oversee it. After all, the client of the estate agent is the landlord, rather than the peasants who pay for the whole gravytrain.

....The alternative which is pretty popular, is that the owner lets it out and rents what is a pretty much unsaleable property at it's market value....

...Mine workings do not affect the rental potential of a building! Unless they have started causing problems....

But, if you know there is a problem, let the property and someone is injured when it does collapse - what then?

....The alternative which is pretty popular, is that the owner lets it out and rents what is a pretty much unsaleable property at it's market value....

...Mine workings do not affect the rental potential of a building! Unless they have started causing problems....

But, if you know there is a problem, let the property and someone is injured when it does collapse - what then?

IF it collpases... As long as you have informed the agent etc then nothing happens to you...

Its all about appointing blame, as long as you prove you have done everything reasonably within your power to warn the agent etc, if they don't pass that on to the tenant that is their choice and they bare the consequences.

Or you could deny you knew it was there and not worry about it, all depends on your morals I suppose!

Re Tony Blair's point of letting.
I know of a bungalow which due to movement the coal Authority paid out in full to the owner. The owner did not want the property so the solicitor bought it off him for £1-00. The solicitor then put in tenants for several years till he hoped its history had vanished in time. The house was put up for sale with no past details. It is only when a prospective purchaser went to Building Control and the officer knew the full history that the truth came out.
For this and other reasons we have now one less solicitor.

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Re Tony Blair's point of letting.
I know of a bungalow which due to movement the coal Authority paid out in full to the owner.

When coal minerals were nationalised in 1938, the Coal Commission (and its successors the NCB, and now the Coal Authority) acquired not just ownership but also all liabilities. This accounts for such pay outs for subsidence caused by current and historic coal mining, and also the very concientious stopping up of entries and capping of shafts (though the dangers of noxious atmospheres, generally poor roofs, and the frequent coincidence urban areas with coalfields also played a major role).

Metalliferous and other minerals, in contrast, were not nationalised (though there were periodic suggestions some should be) - hence the frequent lack of clarity as to who is liable for subsidence caused by historic working of non-coal minerals.