Buying a House That Needs Restumping

How it shows up at inspection

Building reports rarely say “this house needs restumping” outright. They hedge. Look for phrases like “stumps at or approaching the end of their serviceable life”, “evidence of moisture and decay to timber stumps”, “floor out of level” or “differential settlement noted”. Any of these means the inspector saw something real under the house; the careful wording is about their liability, not your risk.

You can spot a lot yourself at an open home. Feel for sloping floors as you walk the hallway, try a few internal doors (see doors that stick), bounce gently in the middle of large rooms, and look for freshly patched or painted plaster around door frames - a common pre-sale tidy-up. Rugs and furniture placed in odd spots sometimes earn a second look. The full signs guide covers what each symptom does and does not prove.

Pricing it into your offer

A full restump on a weatherboard house typically costs $15,000-$25,000, and $20,000-$30,000 for brick veneer. A partial restump of 8-20 stumps runs $4,000-$12,000. On top of the stump work itself, budget for plaster patching, painting and possibly floor coverings afterwards - re-levelling a house that has settled will open old cracks as it closes new ones. Our costs guide breaks the numbers down by house type and job size.

That figure is your negotiating position. A vague “the stumps look tired” is worth little at the table; a written quote is worth its face value. If the contract allows, get a restumping contractor or independent building consultant under the house during your cooling-off period or before the contract goes unconditional. Vendors and agents respond to documented numbers, not adjectives.

Deal-breakers vs manageable

Most stump problems are manageable. Old timber stumps at end of life with historical, stable settlement and a dry subfloor is the classic case: a known job, a known price, a week of work. Treat these differently:

• Active, severe movement - cracks over 5 mm that are visibly fresh or widening, or floors reported as still moving. This may point past the stumps to the soil itself, which is a bigger question.
• Water under the house - standing water, boggy soil or chronic drainage faults. Restumping over unfixed water invites a repeat; see why houses sink.
• Unpermitted past restumping - evidence of newer stumps but no permit record. Unapproved structural work can complicate insurance, finance and resale.

What to ask the vendor

If the house has been restumped before, ask for the building permit and the certificate of final inspection, any engineering documentation, and the contractor's written warranty - and whether that warranty transfers to you. In Victoria, domestic building work over $16,000 requires domestic building insurance, which protects subsequent owners too, so ask for the certificate. Vendor disclosure documents in most states list recent building approvals; cross-check them. The regulations guide explains what paperwork a legal restump produces in each state.

Buying a house that was restumped without a permit

Newer-looking stumps with no building permit on the section 32, contract disclosure or council records is a common find. It means no building surveyor signed off the work, there is usually no warranty or insurance trail, and in Victoria a council can in theory issue a building notice over unapproved structural work later. In practice councils rarely chase old stumps, but you still carry the uncertainty: you cannot prove what was done, how deep the footings go or whether the stumps were sized for the load.

Confirm it before you decide. Check the vendor disclosure for building approvals, ask the agent in writing who did the work and when, and order a property information request from the council so you know exactly what permits exist. Do not count on a retrospective permit. Surveyors are often unwilling to issue one for stumps because the footings are buried and cannot be inspected, which is why a vendor who tried may already have been refused.

What you can get instead is an inspection by a registered restumper or a structural engineer. They can check stump material, condition, spacing, bearer contact and floor levels, expose a sample of footings, and tell you whether the work is sound or needs redoing. That report gives you three clean choices:

• Proceed with a price reduction sized from the restumper's quote for whatever needs fixing, plus an allowance for an engineer's report and permit if you want the work legitimised later.
• Make the contract conditional on a satisfactory engineer's or restumper's report, so you can still walk if the subfloor is worse than it looks from the access hatch.
• Walk away if the vendor refuses access, the stumps are visibly wrong, or the house only works for you at full price.

Tell your lender and insurer what you know. Lenders generally do not react to an old restump without a permit if the valuation is clean, and insurers cover the house but exclude pre-existing defects, so both can ask questions if a valuer or assessor notes structural movement. An unpermitted restump that an engineer says is sound is a negotiating point, not a reason to lose the house.

Lenders, insurers and after settlement

Lenders rarely blink at ordinary stump wear, but a valuation noting severe structural movement can trigger requests for engineering reports or, occasionally, a reduced valuation. Insurers are the sharper edge: most policies exclude pre-existing damage, and some insurers are reluctant to cover homes with severe active movement until it is repaired. Get an insurance quote, not just a lending pre-approval, before going unconditional on a badly affected house.

Once you own it, sequence the work properly: restump first, renovate second. Re-levelling moves walls, so plastering, painting, kitchen cabinetry and tiling done beforehand can crack or rack. A full restump takes about 7-9 days, so it is easy to schedule ahead of a renovation - see how long restumping takes and our guide to choosing a contractor.

If you are the seller: the buyer wants the stumps fixed before settlement

The same negotiation looks different from the vendor's side. The buyer's building and pest report has picked up the stumps and they are asking you to restump before settlement or take money off the price. Start with where the contract stands:

• Still inside a building and pest condition. The buyer can usually terminate or renegotiate, so you are bargaining to keep the sale, and the question is what it costs you to keep it.
• Unconditional. The stumps are the buyer's problem unless they have got worse since the contract was signed. A pre-settlement inspection checks the house is in the same condition as at contract; it is not a second building inspection and does not reopen the price.

From there you have three options, and the order matters:

1. Do the work yourself before settlement. Get your own quotes rather than accepting the buyer's number. A restumper's inspection often finds a partial restump is enough where the report hedged about stumps at the end of their serviceable life. Check permit timing in your state and whether the job can be finished and signed off before the settlement date, because a late restump delays settlement and hands the buyer leverage you do not want.
2. Agree a price adjustment. Size it from a written restumping quote, not the buyer's estimate or an inspector's range. Many vendors prefer this: it closes the deal without managing a contractor under a deadline, and the buyer gets to choose who does the work.
3. Hold firm. If the buyer's figure is inflated and you have a restumper's report showing a smaller job, you can decline, accept that they may walk, and relist with the report in hand so the next buyer's inspector finds nothing new.

Buyers sometimes ask for early access to restump before settlement themselves. Most sellers say no: it puts structural work on a house you still own, with your insurance on the line, and if settlement falls over you are left with a half-finished subfloor. If you do agree, have your conveyancer put the terms in writing first.

The key distinction is between a building inspector saying the stumps need attention and a restumper quoting what actually needs doing. The inspector is cautious by design and writes for their own liability. The restumper counts the stumps, checks levels and prices the job, and that number is usually smaller than the one the buyer arrived with. Get it before you answer them.