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Hello all.
My house is on a hill, with half of the house at ground level and the other half elevated.
The was dug out by a previous owner (with council consent) and when I bought the house I had a builder build a garage under there.
This involved digging into the "floor" for the foundations and also shaving the bank a bit to make room for the concrete block wall for that end.
Unfortunately after the digging was completed I had to wait about a year (with a lot of txting asking the builder to hurry up) for the concrete wall to get built and at the 10 month mark the bank gave way and caved in a bit. Luckily (maybe not, we'll get to that) it was stopped by the footing of the concrete block wall, so the bank only slipped and moved forward about 40cm.
This completely dislodged a foundation and it was left hanging by the bearer.
The builder did a temporary fix by cutting the wooden post, which dropped the foundation down about 20cm, then bolting a new wooden post to it. So the foundation is holding up the house, but needs to be replaced.
So this happened back in March 2017. I thought I just loved one foundation and the builder would fix it.
The garage was mostly finished at the middle of this year and a few weeks ago I was nailing some hardiplank on the framing under the house to close in that wall. While I was under there, I was looking under the house and realised that it wasn't the surface of the bank that slipped, it went back about 10 metres, almost the entire space the house is sitting on.
So instead of what I thought was maybe a metre's worth that slipped and one foundation, it was about 10 metres and almost every foundation.
It was a really "oh my god" moment. The builder must have known.
So I made a claim with EQC, which they promptly threw out, because it was past the 3 month cutoff (at that time)
I've now made a claim with AMI, they sent an adjuster around and I explained everything, yesterday they denied it. They will write me a letter in the next 2 weeks, but they said it was an ongoing issue, not a sudden act, or something like that (the insurance woman actually started to get mad at me when I was trying to get her to explain)
It's not ongoing, the house creaked like mad when the bank slipped, but it stopped as soon as the builder temporarily fixed the foundation. The concrete block wall was built a couple months later and I immediately back filled between the wall and the back with gravel, so it was incapable of moving, it's not ongoing at all.
I've tried to Google this, but it's not easy to search for.
Can anyone offer me any suggestions on what to do next?
I'm thinking I'll need to sue the builder and hope he doesn't just decide to fold his company. If I had a car accident, my insurance would do this for me, but they don't seem to care when it comes to my house?
I understand I left it too long with EQC, but what about the fact that I didn't know this happened until 3 weeks ago, I just knew when it happened?
I'll try the insurance Ombudsman and see what they can do.
I'm hoping someone can tell me of their own experiences with this sort of thing.
Thanks.
My house is on a hill, with half of the house at ground level and the other half elevated.
The was dug out by a previous owner (with council consent) and when I bought the house I had a builder build a garage under there.
This involved digging into the "floor" for the foundations and also shaving the bank a bit to make room for the concrete block wall for that end.
Unfortunately after the digging was completed I had to wait about a year (with a lot of txting asking the builder to hurry up) for the concrete wall to get built and at the 10 month mark the bank gave way and caved in a bit. Luckily (maybe not, we'll get to that) it was stopped by the footing of the concrete block wall, so the bank only slipped and moved forward about 40cm.
This completely dislodged a foundation and it was left hanging by the bearer.
The builder did a temporary fix by cutting the wooden post, which dropped the foundation down about 20cm, then bolting a new wooden post to it. So the foundation is holding up the house, but needs to be replaced.
So this happened back in March 2017. I thought I just loved one foundation and the builder would fix it.
The garage was mostly finished at the middle of this year and a few weeks ago I was nailing some hardiplank on the framing under the house to close in that wall. While I was under there, I was looking under the house and realised that it wasn't the surface of the bank that slipped, it went back about 10 metres, almost the entire space the house is sitting on.
So instead of what I thought was maybe a metre's worth that slipped and one foundation, it was about 10 metres and almost every foundation.
It was a really "oh my god" moment. The builder must have known.
So I made a claim with EQC, which they promptly threw out, because it was past the 3 month cutoff (at that time)
I've now made a claim with AMI, they sent an adjuster around and I explained everything, yesterday they denied it. They will write me a letter in the next 2 weeks, but they said it was an ongoing issue, not a sudden act, or something like that (the insurance woman actually started to get mad at me when I was trying to get her to explain)
It's not ongoing, the house creaked like mad when the bank slipped, but it stopped as soon as the builder temporarily fixed the foundation. The concrete block wall was built a couple months later and I immediately back filled between the wall and the back with gravel, so it was incapable of moving, it's not ongoing at all.
I've tried to Google this, but it's not easy to search for.
Can anyone offer me any suggestions on what to do next?
I'm thinking I'll need to sue the builder and hope he doesn't just decide to fold his company. If I had a car accident, my insurance would do this for me, but they don't seem to care when it comes to my house?
I understand I left it too long with EQC, but what about the fact that I didn't know this happened until 3 weeks ago, I just knew when it happened?
I'll try the insurance Ombudsman and see what they can do.
I'm hoping someone can tell me of their own experiences with this sort of thing.
Thanks.
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