What it costs, how long it takes and what the insurer does, from RICS, the Financial Ombudsman Service, the British Geological Survey, the legislation and the price sources I could open on 20 September 2026. Where they copy each other, I say so.
Underpinning a typical house costs £10,000 to £75,000 according to RICS, and a quantity surveyor writing for Homebuilding & Renovating puts a typical three-bedroom semi at £10,000 to £30,000. Per metre of wall, traditional mass concrete underpinning comes out at £1,000 to £1,500 in the two sources that measure it that way. Most subsidence is never underpinned, though: RICS estimates that fewer than 5% of affected properties need it, because dealing with a tree or repairing a leaking drain usually stops the movement. With buildings insurance you normally pay the excess, commonly £1,000, and the insurer pays the rest. Time is the bigger cost. Cracks are monitored for as long as 12 months, RICS allows up to two years from first investigation to finished repair, and the underpinning itself takes 3 to 5 weeks in the one guide that puts a number on it.
Before you sign for a five-figure job: is the company active, are the accounts filed, is there an insolvency history. Straight from the public register.
That distinction is worth money. The ombudsman lists settlement, the kind that happens within 10 years of construction, among the causes of cracking that are often uninsured. Which of the two you have is the first thing an insurer will want to establish.
I put this above the prices on purpose. If fewer than 5% of cases end in underpinning, the cost table below is not the first thing you need. Find the cause first. The quote comes after.
Per metre of wall, traditional mass concrete, in the sources that measure it that way:
| Source | Per metre of wall | What is in it |
|---|---|---|
| Mainmark UK, How much does underpinning cost in 2025? | £1,000 to £1,500 | A rough indication per linear metre of wall; VAT is not mentioned. |
| EMA Structures, How Much Do Basements and Underpinning Cost in London? | around £1,500, or £1,800 with VAT | Labour and materials, traditional mass concrete, pins to 1 m deep, London. Excludes VAT. |
| MyJobQuote and Checkatrade | £1,500, labelled per m2 | Labour and materials for the underpinning itself; VAT is not mentioned. The engineer, building control and any party wall award come on top. |
About that last row. Checkatrade, MyJobQuote, Zapperty and the opening of the Mainmark page all publish the same numbers, down to the pound. That is one measurement printed four times, and I count it once. They call it a price per m2, but MyJobQuote's own worked examples say otherwise: £6,000 for 4 metres, £13,500 for 9 metres and £21,000 for 14 metres, which is £1,500 times the metres each time. So it is a price per metre of wall, and it agrees with the two sources that measure their own work.
The whole job, starting with the one source that has nothing to sell:
Other methods rest on a single table, Mainmark's, and Mainmark sells one of them: mini piled underpinning £1,500 to £2,500 per metre and resin injection £800 to £1,500 per metre. One measurement from an interested party is not a price band, so treat those two as a starting point for questions.
On top comes the structural engineer at £50 to £100 an hour (the price guides say £50 to £90, GCS Contractors, Underpinning Cost per Metre UK 2026 says £50 to £100), the building control fee, and on a shared wall the party wall surveyors, which have their own page.
The building work is the short part: 3 to 5 weeks for most jobs according to MyJobQuote, and Mainmark's table puts 6 metres of wall at 6 days on site for mass concrete, 5-6 days for mini piles and 1-2 days for resin. The year of crack monitoring before it is what people do not expect.
What I cannot give you is what cover costs after a claim, or for how long a claim follows the house. The Association of British Insurers would be the source, and its site refused an automated reader and then showed a bot check in the browser, which I did not try to get around. No source, no number. If a builder's guarantee is part of the repair, check what stands behind it on the guarantees page.
No open source I found puts a percentage on it, and I will not invent one. If a survey has flagged movement on a house you want to buy, what happens after a house survey covers the next step: get the specialist in first, and renegotiate on what they find.
Sources, all opened on 20 September 2026: RICS consumer guide, Subsidence (Published date: 14 November 2022); Financial Ombudsman Service, Subsidence and other types of ground movement (the page shows no date); British Geological Survey, Six ways to prepare your home for climate change related subsidence (19/05/2021); British Geological Survey, Swelling and shrinking soils (the page shows no date); The Building Regulations 2010, regulation 3 (Latest available (revised) version); Planning Portal, Is building regulations approval needed for underpinning? (the page shows no date); Planning Portal, Underpinning, Building Regulations: Methods and Inspections (the page shows no date); Planning Portal, Underpinning, Planning Permission (the page shows no date); Party Wall etc. Act 1996, section 2 (Latest available (revised) version); Party Wall etc. Act 1996, section 3 (Latest available (revised) version); Party Wall etc. Act 1996, section 6 (Latest available (revised) version); MyJobQuote, How Much Does Underpinning Cost? (Last updated 17/09/26); Checkatrade, What are Underpinning Costs? (Page: last updated 31 March 2022; price tables: last updated May 2024); EMA Structures, How Much Do Basements and Underpinning Cost in London? (Published 14 July 2026); Mainmark UK, How much does underpinning cost in 2025? (Headed 2025; the page shows no publication date); Homebuilding & Renovating, How much does underpinning cost? A quantity surveyor explains (Last updated 24 October 2024); GCS Contractors, Underpinning Cost per Metre UK 2026 (the page shows no date). Tried and not counted: Association of British Insurers.
It depends on the cause more than on the house. If a tree or a leaking drain is behind it, dealing with that is often the whole repair, and RICS estimates that fewer than 5% of properties with subsidence need underpinning. When they do, RICS gives £10,000 to £75,000 for a typical house and Homebuilding & Renovating gives £10,000 to £30,000 for a typical three-bedroom semi, with £50,000 or more for larger or more intricate jobs. With an accepted insurance claim your own bill is normally the excess, commonly £1,000 (RICS).
About £1,000 to £1,500 per metre of wall for traditional mass concrete. Mainmark's table gives £1,000 to £1,500 per linear metre, and EMA Structures, a London contractor, publishes around £1,500 per metre run before VAT, which is £1,800 with VAT. The big price guides say £1,500 "per m2", but their own worked examples come out at that rate times the metres of wall, so I read it as the same figure.
The work itself: 3 to 5 weeks for most jobs according to MyJobQuote, and Mainmark's table puts 6 metres of mass concrete at 6 days on site. The wait before it is longer. Cracks may be monitored for as long as 12 months, and RICS says solving subsidence can take up to two years to investigate fully and rectify.
No. RICS estimates that fewer than 5% of properties suffering from subsidence need it, and says the Institution of Structural Engineers recommends underpinning only as a last resort. Where tree roots are the cause the tree can be removed or managed, and where a leaking drain is washing soil away, repairing the pipework is usually enough.
RICS: there is rarely any cause for real concern unless cracks appear suddenly and are more than 3mm wide. Other signs it lists are new or expanding cracks in plaster or outside brickwork, doors or windows sticking for no reason, and new sloping of solid ground floors. The Financial Ombudsman Service adds that cracking in itself is not evidence of subsidence; what marks it is different parts of the building moving at different rates.
I have found no open source that gives a percentage, so I give none. The British Geological Survey lists depressed house prices and increased insurance premiums among the costs of subsidence, and that is as far as the sources go. Any figure you read elsewhere should come with where it was measured.
The part of a subsidence claim you pay yourself. RICS says it is commonly £1,000. The Financial Ombudsman Service notes that the subsidence clause of a policy usually carries a higher excess than the escape of water clause, which matters when a leak caused the movement.
Building control, yes: the Building Regulations 2010 name underpinning as building work, and each section is normally inspected before it is concreted. Planning permission is generally not needed for work on foundations, though a listed building or a designated area should check first (Planning Portal). On a shared wall the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 asks for a notice at least two months ahead.