Brenty

Our front attic room needs a sort out- namely a new cubpoard for the eaves and the sloping floor sorting out. It's an old edwardian mid terrace built circa 1906. As far as I'm aware, it's always been an inhabited room rather than being a previous loft conversion. The floor slopes approx 3-4 inches towards the front of the house which is fairly noticeable. Oddly the ceiling below is plumb as is the floor on the other attic room and the floor immediately below. Any idea on how much of a big job this is going to be and whether it's going to involve building regs appproval etc?

Thanks for the reply. We've had the bricks sealed from the outside on our side where the pointing has been re-done. The neighbours are having a few tiles replaced and repointing their side of the stack in a few weeks.

We live in an Edwardian mid terrace and have a leak in our upper front bedroom adjacent to the chimney stack we share with our neighbours. Despite two separate roofers replacing the lead flashing around the stack, repointing the stack fully and re-doing the channel between ours and the neighbours' tiles, it's no better. It's seeping rather than leaking and is noticeably worse after it rains and leaves a sticky, slightly dirty residue once it dries. The second roofer is coming back to take a look, but I'm not sure he knows exactly what the cause is. Could this actually be due to our neighbour's roof? They say they've also got a problem on their side and are having loose tiles sorted in the coming weeks. I wonder if there is any merit in taking off the plaster down to the brick to identify and treat the source of the leak? If so, who does this kind of thing?!

Thanks for all the advice. I've now managed to arrange insurance through a specialist firm 'Towergate' via Quoteline Direct insurance brokers. I also had a structural engineer come round who was happy that the house is structurally fine and that this is all long-standing settlement. Having the report is peace of mind and will reassure potential buyers in future if we come to sell the house on. My advice for anyone who stumbles upon this thread in a similar position is to sort all of this out before exchanging contracts i.e. put the onus on the vendor. My experience has been that major insurers are reluctant to insure you if a Homebuyer's Report shows structural movement. Get a full structural survey and/or Structural Engineer's report and you'll be fine getting insurance. If the house needs remedial work or even underpinning, it needs to be done and will make the house structurally sound. Insurance thereafter will be expensive, but can be arranged. I suspect there are a lot of people out there who neglect to inform insurers of the contents of house surveys and live on in blissful ignorance. Best to be honest in my book.

Anyone been in this situation or can advise us? We've Just moved into big old Edwardian mid terrace in Banner Cross and are struggling to get home building and contents insurance as our Homebuyer's Report mentions 'structural movement...clearly longstanding with no evidence to suggest any recent or progressive distortion'. There is no mention of previous underpinning or structural repairs. There is also no explanation of whether the movement is due to settlement or subsidence. I was told by the surveyor that this was a common finding in this area and he didn't have any impression we'd go on to suffer structural problems for the foreseeable future. I've rung up a number of big name insurers and quoted the report and, after talking to their underwriters, they have all come back and refused. Some have said they would insure us conditional on a satisfactory structural engineer's report. I certainly don't want to dishonestly sign up to a policy and neglect to inform them what we know as that would constitute non-disclosure and invalidate any claim we ever put in. I'm also slightly reluctant to get a structural engineer in on the basis that if we do and find out the house needs underpinning, seemingly we would render the house uninsurable and diminish any hope of future re-sale. Axa's website asks if to the best of our knowledge whether there has been any subsidence in the past 10 years. I am thinking that if I can ask the surveyor to re-word his report to support this statement, we could sign up to that providing they are happy.

Just checked the council website and no, we don't appear to be in a conservation area (it's in Greystones). Thanks for the advice!

Just moved into a new 3 storey Edwardian mid-terrace house in S11. We need to arrange some exterior repairs/maintenance which I imagine will involve multiple tradespeople, so some advice on how best to orchestrate this would be gratefully received. Work required is: Repainting front and back Repairs/replacement of damaged timber casement to front dormer window Guttering repairs front and back Leaking roof repair (there seems to be water getting in around front dormer window) Any advice/ideas on where to start?!