A further reminder of why all house buyers are well advised to obtain specialist property advice is the recently reported case of the 300 feet sinkhole that has opened up next to a bungalow in Cornwall.
Many parts of England and Wales are former mining areas - which activity has long since ceased in most cases. It is vital for a buyer in these locations to ensure that proper searches are carried out to establish whether the property is in an area likely to be affected by former mining work.
The obvious and dramatic risk is that the property is built over or near to a former mine shaft. If this opens up, the property will almost invariably be unsaleable (if it exists at all once the hole has appeared).
Link: News article