Selling a house with a mine shaft

Britain has a rich history of mining, for coal, for metals like copper and tin, and for clay. Unfortunately, this has left a rabbit warren of disused mines and mineshafts from Consett to Cornwall, from Carlisle to Kent. While most of these mines have been closed for decades, they are still impacting thousands of homes across the country to this day.

Selling a house with a mineshaft is not impossible, but it’s often much more complicated and expensive. You may need to pay for expert reports and surveys before you even go to market, and even if you do find a buyer willing to risk it, they may struggle to get a mortgage. Even if you have all the right, reassuring reports, you could still find that there’s a stigma attached to your home, making selling a home near a mineshaft really difficult.

So how do you stop a mineshaft becoming a money pit, and what’s the best way to sell a home near a mineshaft without getting shafted yourself in the process? Join the Guru as we take a look down the biggest rabbit hole of them all…

selling a house with a mineshaft

Mine, all mine!

The Coal Authority lists over 150,000 mine shafts in the UK. These stretch from the Valleys of South Wales, through the Midlands and up to Yorkshire, the North East and beyond into Southern Scotland. Ironically for a mine count, this figure barely scratches the surface. It’s estimated that there may be double, or even triple that number of mine shafts that have yet to be formally recorded. What’s more, the figures don’t include the hundreds of copper, tin and clay mines that have carved up the South West for centuries.

What’s the problem with mineshafts?

A mineshaft is an opening to a mine that was once used to transport miners down to the coalface, and bring them, and the fruit of their labours, back to the surface. Entrances can be horizontal, known as adit, or vertical like a shaft.

Mine shafts can be as much as five metres wide and drop hundreds of feet down. If a shaft is capped correctly, using a concrete cap, it shouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, many of the older mines in Britain were not capped in this way; they were capped with wooden railway sleepers. This was not the smartest solution, because these wooden structures rot over time, causing the cap to collapse, taking homes and gardens with it.

We’ve all seen the dramatic pictures of stunned families clutching their children tightly as they stare into the abyss. Fortunately, this kind of catastrophic collapse is rare. Only a dozen or so shafts completely collapse each year. However, ground movement, leading to subsidence and even partial collapse of buildings, is much more common.

Without the pumps that kept them dry, disused mines can slowly fill with water, which eventually rises to the surface. This destabilises the ground and causes sink holes in roads and gardens and subsidence in nearby buildings. This puts your home at real risk and can knock tens of thousands of pounds off your property value.

mine shaft problems

Can you sell a house with a mineshaft?

Having a mineshaft close to your home doesn’t mean you can’t sell it; it just means that selling it will be much, much harder. Think about it; would you want to buy a house that’s at risk of cracking and crumbling away, or worse?

To successfully sell a home close to a mineshaft, you’ll have to jump through endless hoops. You’ll need searches, specialist reports and on-site surveys to reassure your buyers, their insurers and their mortgage company. This not only makes the whole process more expensive for you, but also for your buyers too. Plus it adds a level of stress that most buyers just aren’t willing to take on.

With so much hassle and expense involved, and plenty of other, more secure properties to choose from, chances are you’ll have to offer a significant price reduction just to attract any interest at all. And actually selling a property near a mineshaft is even harder. That’s where a cash house buyer can really help to pull you out of that hole.

Selling a house with a mineshaft to a cash buyer

Cash house buying companies will buy any house, in any condition. This includes helping you out if you’re selling a house near a mineshaft. Naturally, their offer will be lower than it would be for a similar, unaffected property, because it will reflect the current market value of your property, mineshaft and all.

Selling a house with a mineshaft to a cash house buyer is not a cheap option, but it can be worth it if you want to offload a problem home fast and move on. It can be especially useful if you’ve been struggling to find a buyer for a long time and you’re feeling like you’ll be stuck with your home until one of you ends up six feet under.

Selling to a cash buyer also means you can sidestep all those expensive and invasive surveys needed for a standard sale. Your home is sold as seen, so you can get off the home selling hamster wheel, get some cash in the bank and start again. For a mineshaft sale you will need to find a specialist house buying company, if you are shopping around it is worth being wary of offers that are too good to be true and if a company sends out a contract to sign run like the wind in the opposite direction!

For help on how to find a genuine cash buying company you can download our free ‘step by step guide to finding a legitimate house buying company’ or if you want an idea of what a cash offer for your property might look like you can use our ‘cash offer calculator’ tool by clicking the button below. If the offer could work for you we can even help you find a vetted house buyer that specialises in mine shaft properties.

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Do you have to declare that you’re selling a house near a mineshaft?

You have a legal duty to declare any mineshaft issues when you complete the property information forms sent to you by the buyers’ solicitors. If you don’t, you risk being sued by the buyers.

Trying to hide mineshaft issues is pointless anyway, as it will inevitably come up in searches and surveys. If you try to hide the problem, it will only create bad blood between you and your buyer, and risk scuppering your sale completely. If you know or suspect that you are selling a house near a mineshaft, it’s much better to get ahead of the problem by getting a mining report.

Mining reports

You can get a mining report quickly and easily online on the Coal Authority website. Searches are free and you can order reports from as little as £25 + VAT, delivered in around 48 hours.

A mining report will tell you if there is a mineshaft within twenty metres of your property. This is the magic number, because most high street mortgage companies won’t lend on properties within twenty metres of a mineshaft. The report will also inform you about any gas issues from the mine and any plans for mining in the future.

It’s worth noting that these reports only cover coal mines. If you live in the West Country, you’ll need to undertake separate investigations into metal mines in the area.

mining reports

What if the mining report shows a problem?

Many mining reports come back without an issue, even if there is a mineshaft close to your property. This can go a long way towards putting potential buyers’ minds at rest. However, sometimes a mineshaft on your property, or even a neighbouring property, can be a cause for concern.

If your mining report does highlight a problem, you’ll need to commission further investigations to identify the full extent of the issues. This will involve specialists, such as geotechnical engineers and mining engineers, who’ll need to visit your home to assess the risks. Once again, these reports may come back positive if your property is found to not be liable to subsidence. On the other hand, if it is at risk, you may be able to claim compensation for any building damage under the Coal Mining Subsidence Act 1991.

The dangers of a mine shaft on your property

Can you get a mortgage on a property near a mineshaft?

Houses near a mineshaft are not completely un-mortgageable, but it’s often much more difficult. Just like buyers, mortgage companies will be reluctant to take on the risk when there’s plenty of other easier business about. As discussed above, if the mineshaft is more than twenty metres from the property, it may not be a problem. Many high street lenders will consider a mortgage in these circumstances.

To secure a mortgage on a house near a mineshaft, your buyers will probably need to find a specialist lender, who will ask for a bigger deposit and/or charge a higher interest rate. This is to offset the additional risk that the lender is taking on, and the extra difficulty they might have in selling the property if they have to repossess it. Your buyers may even need to pay for a mortgage broker to access these specialist mortgages.

can you get a mortgage on a property near a mineshaft

Can you get insurance on a house close to a mineshaft?

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for getting a mortgage on a house near a mineshaft can be finding buildings insurance for the property. As you would expect, insurers are reluctant to cover a property that could crumble away or be swallowed up by the earth at any time. And if you can’t get insurance, you can’t get a mortgage. Just like a specialist mortgage, specialist insurance will inevitably cost your buyers more and that makes your property even less attractive.

Summary

Selling a house near a mineshaft is not impossible, but it is not easy either. In a buyers’ market, where things are already painfully slow, any issue that complicates your sale will just put buyers off. And you can be sure that any buyers that are willing to take the risk will be expecting a significant price reduction as compensation.

You can try to get ahead of the game by arming yourself with professional reports, but these will cost you money, and there’s no guarantee that this investment will help you to find a buyer in the end. You could end up spending a fortune and getting nothing in return.

The quickest, surest and simplest way to sell a house with a mineshaft is to sell to a cash house buying company. They’ll offer a fair price for a quick sale, with no need to spend time and money on expensive surveys and reports. To see our tried and tested list of the best cash buyers click here. It could be the easiest way for you to get out of that hole and back on solid ground!

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Resources

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coal-authority-caps-200m-deep-coal-mine-shaft-to-keep-residents-safe-in-wigan

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