Your Stories

Mr H. Ramsay - Cornwall

I had lived happily in my home for 6 years with my wife and had intended to sell up and relocate within the next two years.

In August 2006, cracks started to appear in the walls of our lounge above windows, stretching from ceiling to floor. A instructed a structural engineer to investigate the problems but never dreamed how serious it would become.

The investigations lead to the drilling of our front lawn to look for any signs of past mining activity which looked somewhat positive as the drill went down to 10 metres.

I remember vividly the moment we discovered the extent of the problem, as the drilling noise stopped to indicate the presence of a mine shaft at 12 metres. Further inspection revealed the shaft was approximately 15 metres long and more or less the height of our house. Apparently work had previously been performed to ensure the house was safe but according to the surveyors, this is not up to modern standards.

Homes in our area generally sell for approximately £100,000, with the ground stability issue, ours has now been valued at just over £30,000.

Mrs S. Corby - Cambridgeshire

We bought our property in 1993 and today would be worth around £150,000, the houses in the area used to be in great demand. However a recent buyers search reported the presence of contamination due to an old gas works approximately 25m from our property.

The contamination has left poisonous, and what we understand to be cancer causing chemicals in our gardens, in addition to solid lumps of residue from the works which means our children are unable to play in the garden, and my husband and I only go out there when absolutely necessary.

The problem is so severe that no local estate agents will market our house and it has been deemed potentially worthless.

Clean-up of the contamination was supposed to have started earlier on this year but there have been delays due to the extent of the problem. We still do not know whether our home will have to be demolished.