What Is a Certificate of Structural Adequacy? And When Do You Need One?

A Certificate of Structural Adequacy is a document confirming that repairs to a building damaged by subsidence, heave or landslip were carried out properly, and that the building was structurally sound once that work was finished. It is normally issued at the end of an insurance claim by the engineer or surveyor the insurer appointed to specify and inspect the repairs.

If you are buying, selling or remortgaging a house that has had subsidence, this is the document everyone will ask for. It is also the document that most often turns out not to exist. Here is what it covers, what it does not, and what to do when there is no certificate.

What does a Certificate of Structural Adequacy actually say?

It records three things: what caused the damage, what repair work was carried out, and confirmation that the work was completed correctly and the property is structurally sound.

It is usually short, often a single page, and it follows guidance published by the Institution of Structural Engineers. The value is not in its length. It is in who signed it, which works it names, and the date on it.

Who issues a Certificate of Structural Adequacy?

Normally the engineer or surveyor appointed by the insurer, being the person who specified the repairs and inspected them as they went.

Loss adjusters, insurers and mortgage lenders normally expect the certificate to come from a Chartered Member of the Institution of Structural Engineers. An independent chartered structural engineer can also issue one.

What nobody can do is produce one from a desk, years later, for work they never saw. Whoever signs it is certifying repairs they oversaw. That single fact explains most of the difficulty people run into.

When is it issued?

After the repairs are complete, and where underpinning was involved, after a period of monitoring.

Monitoring is there to show that the movement has genuinely stopped rather than paused. It is why a certificate can arrive many months after the building work looks finished, and why the builders leaving in March does not mean the paperwork exists.

Is a Certificate of Structural Adequacy a guarantee?

No, and this is the most common misunderstanding we are asked about.

It confirms that specific repairs were carried out properly and that the building was structurally adequate at the time it was signed. It is not a warranty against future movement, it does not insure anything, and it says nothing about the parts of the building the repairs did not touch.

There is also no legal or contractual requirement for one to be issued at all. That is precisely why so many properties with a repair history do not have one.

What if there is no certificate?

Very common, and not automatically a problem. There are three things worth chasing, in this order.

• The insurer’s claim file. The current owner can request it. It should name the cause of the damage, the works carried out and the engineer involved.
• A Building Control completion certificate, if underpinning was carried out. Underpinning is notifiable under the Building Regulations, so the council should have inspected the work and signed it off.
• An independent structural engineer’s report, where neither of the above can be produced.

A structural report is not the same document and should never be presented as one. But it is frequently what a lender or a buyer’s solicitor will accept, because what they actually want to know is whether the building is moving now.

Does it pass to the next owner?

The certificate is a record about the building, so it is normally handed over with the rest of the property paperwork at sale. What does not pass with it is cover.

Insurance is a separate question and worth settling early. A property with a claim history is harder to insure, some insurers decline it outright, and specialist insurers exist for exactly this situation. That is a conversation to have before exchange rather than after.

What an engineer can tell you when the paperwork cannot

Where the documents are missing, the building itself is still evidence. An inspection looks at the crack pattern inside and out, whether cracks taper from one end to the other, whether doors and floors have gone out of level, and whether anything has moved since it was last filled.

Where it is not clear what is underneath, a trial pit alongside the foundation shows the depth and condition of what the house is actually sitting on, usually in an afternoon.

Drainage and trees get checked as well, because on the clay soils common across the East of England they are the usual cause rather than the brickwork itself.

Who to call, and for what

Ora Labora Structural Engineers carry out structural surveys and produce written structural reports for homeowners, buyers, lenders, insurers and solicitors across Peterborough, London and the East of England.

If the repairs were done under an insurance claim, the certificate itself normally has to come from the engineer the insurer appointed, so the first useful question is who that was. If no claim was ever made, or the trail has gone cold, an independent structural report is usually what gets the sale moving again.

Buying a house with a crack history, or selling one and the paperwork has gone missing? Send us what you have, including the survey, any photographs and anything the vendor can find, and we will tell you which of the two you actually need.