Subsidence, settlement and heave
A Coal Authority search mentions past workings, and the walls the surveyor saw have no cracks. Why are those two findings about different questions?
The Coal Authority note of past workings and the crack-free walls are about different questions. The search is a record of mining history for the area or the site. The walls the surveyor saw had no cracks, which is a visual comment on those walls on that day. One does not cancel the other. No mining depth should be invented from either paper, and a quiet wall is not a clearance of the ground.
Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless this answer says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.
What is the fuller explanation?
A mining search can mention workings whether or not the plaster is split. The survey can only say what the walls, floors and openings did when they were looked at. Absence of cracks is worth recording. It is not a statement that the ground has never moved, and it is not a reading of the Coal Authority entry rewritten as 'nothing to see'.
Give the solicitor the search and give the survey its own page. If you need a specialist view of mining risk, that is a further instruction, not a sentence the home survey has already finished. Do not tell a lender the workings are irrelevant because the walls were uncracked, and do not tell them the house is moving because a search mentions the past.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Which walls did you see with no cracks, and were any floors out of level?
- Are you treating the Coal Authority entry as a separate question from those walls?
- Did you interpret the mining search, or only note that it exists?
What are the typical next steps?
- Keep the Coal Authority search and the crack-free walls as two findings.
- Do not clear the ground because the walls you saw were uncracked.
- Do not invent a depth or an extent of workings the papers did not give you.
Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.
Also asked about this
If there are no cracks, can the mining search be ignored?
No. The search and the walls answer different questions. A crack-free day does not rewrite a Coal Authority note, and the note does not invent a crack.
Does the survey decide whether mining affects this house?
No. It records the walls it saw. It does not turn a Coal Authority entry into a structural clearance or a measured depth.