Local Subsidence Risk

Subsidence Risk Postcode Checker

Want to check the subsidence risk for a postcode before you buy? Subsidence risk changes with geology and mining history. London Clay areas behave differently from the Sherwood Sandstone north-west; granite around Aberdeen is different again. This index covers 46 UK cities, with the local BGS clay risk, mining-era ground issues, and what your survey should focus on.

Last updated: 24 August 2026. Editorially reviewed: 24 June 2026.

Subsidence warning signs and risk factors including crack patterns, sticking openings, soil, trees, drains, claim history and specialist inspection — Subsidence screening should combine visible building signs with soil, tree, drainage and claim-history factors, then move to qualified survey or engineering advice. Original graphic by MyPropertyScan; updated 2026-07-16.

Tool shortcut

Start your subsidence check now

Enter an address below, we'll take you straight to the free subsidence-signal preview.

What a subsidence risk postcode checker can tell you

A postcode check can flag local clay shrink-swell, historic mining context and address-level prompts to raise with your surveyor. It cannot prove active movement by itself. Use it to decide whether to commission Level 3, structural, drainage or insurance follow-up before exchange.

What natural ground subsidence means

Natural ground subsidence means downward movement caused by the ground itself, rather than by a mine, basement excavation or poorly compacted fill. BGS GeoSure groups natural ground stability into six hazards: shrink-swell clay, collapsible deposits, compressible ground, landslides, running sand and soluble rocks.

In UK home buying, clay shrink-swell is the best-known example. Clay can lose water and shrink during dry periods, then swell as moisture returns. Trees, leaking drains, foundation depth and building type can change what that geology means for one house. A ground-susceptibility map therefore identifies a hazard that could affect the property; only inspection, monitoring or engineering evidence can show whether the building is moving.

Is there a subsidence claims database?

Not one that a buyer can search by address. The insurance industry's Claims and Underwriting Exchange (CUE) holds home-insurance incidents, including records that may not have become paid claims. MIB's public access route is a subject access request for information about you, not a public property-history search.

Build the property history from evidence instead: ask the seller for previous claim, monitoring, engineer and repair documents; have your conveyancer raise specific enquiries; check the ground-stability and mining searches; and obtain a buildings insurance quote before exchange. If cracks, distortion or past underpinning are disclosed, give the documents to an appropriately qualified surveyor or structural engineer rather than treating a clear map result as proof of no problem.

How to check subsidence risk by postcode

There is no single official subsidence score for an address. Build a screening picture from regional mapping, address-specific searches and property evidence:

1Obtain address-specific ground susceptibility where needed. BGS GeoSure is a premium 1:50,000 product; a conveyancing environmental search can supply property-focused ground-stability detail.
2Add the mining and made-ground context. Coal, stone, chalk or ironstone workings and poorly compacted made ground can drive movement even where clay risk is low. The city guides below summarise the local picture by area.
3Run the address through the scanner above. It combines a directional BGS Engineering Geology indicator at 1:1 million scale with building age and local context, then tells you what to put in front of your surveyor.

For the full buyer playbook, viewing red flags, insurance and mortgage impact, and the negotiation script, read the subsidence risk buying guide.

How to use the local guides

Start with the local guide for the city, then use the address scanner to check the specific postcode. The guide explains the geology and mining context a buyer should know before reading a survey. The address check helps you decide whether the property needs a deeper survey, a structural engineer, a drain survey or a specific question to the seller.

Subsidence pages are separate from flood pages because the buyer workflow is different. Flood risk usually starts with insurance and conveyancing searches. Subsidence risk usually starts with soil, trees, drains, mining history, crack patterns and whether any movement is historic or active.

What a subsidence risk rating means

Any subsidence risk rating describes the ground, not the building. It answers one question: how likely is the soil under this area to shrink and swell enough to move foundations? It does not know whether the house has deep foundations, whether a mature oak sits three metres from the gable, or whether the property has ever moved. Those are survey questions, and no rating substitutes for one.

There are two different scales in play on this site, and they come from two different BGS products. It is worth knowing which one you are looking at.

What the postcode check above returns

A two-way result — clay-rich and shrink-swell prone, or not — with the BGS engineering geology description for the location, such as “Clay rich, shrink swell prone”, “Mudstone / clay bedrock”, “Sandstone bedrock” or “Sand / gravel”. It is derived from public BGS Engineering Geology at 1:1 million scale, so it is a directional indicator for an area, not parcel-level data and not a graded score.

The city index bands, used in our index and map

A six-point scale summarising BGS GeoSure shrink-swell susceptibility per city. These bands appear in the UK Subsidence Risk Index and the UK subsidence map, which plots every indexed city at its real coordinates. They are city-wide, so they will not match a specific postcode result exactly.

City index bands (GeoSure-derived). Not the output of the postcode check above.
Band	Ground	What a buyer should do
Very Low / Low	Sands, gravels, chalk or rock with little shrink-swell behaviour.	No specific subsidence action. A standard Level 2 survey covers it.
Moderate	Mixed superficial deposits, or clay that is present but not dominant.	Ask the surveyor to comment on crack patterns and tree proximity. Usually no more than that.
High	Clay-rich ground that shrinks measurably in a dry summer.	Check for stepped diagonal cracking and mature trees within their height of the wall. Get an insurance quote before exchange.
Very High	London, Oxford, Gault or Weald clay — the geologies behind most UK subsidence claims.	Treat a Level 3 survey as the default, and ask the seller directly about past claims and any underpinning.

Neither scale is address-level. Parcel-level GeoSure susceptibility comes through your conveyancer's environmental search. Insurers then apply their own claims history on top of the geology, which is why two houses on the same clay can be priced differently.

What changes the risk profile

Clay shrink-swell: high-plasticity clays, mature trees and dry summers are the classic claim pattern.
Historic mining: coal, chalk, stone or other local workings can matter even where clay risk is low.
Drainage and foundations: older drains, shallow foundations and local made ground can turn a moderate city-wide risk into a serious address-level question.

Cities covered

Frequently asked questions

How do I check subsidence risk by postcode?

MyPropertyScan's instant signal uses public BGS Engineering Geology at 1:1 million scale as a directional indicator, not parcel-level GeoSure data. For address-specific susceptibility, obtain licensed GeoSure data or a conveyancing environmental search. Also check visible crack patterns, distorted doors or windows, nearby trees, drainage and claim history.

What does ground stability by postcode mean?

It means a directional geology description for that area rather than a graded score for one building. Our postcode checker returns a two-way BGS Engineering Geology result — clay-rich and shrink-swell prone, or not — describing what the ground is generally made of, such as clay, mudstone, sandstone or sand and gravel. It answers whether the local geology is a subsidence risk factor; it does not know whether any specific building has moved.

Which UK areas have the highest subsidence risk?

London Clay — covering much of south-east England — is a high-plasticity clay with elevated shrink-swell susceptibility. Areas like Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and parts of Essex and Kent have higher historical subsidence claim rates. Northern cities founded on harder sandstone and limestone typically have lower risk, though historic coal mining around Yorkshire, the Midlands and South Wales creates separate ground stability concerns.

Does subsidence risk affect insurance?

Insurers price mainly on claims history and evidence of ground movement, not on raw geology alone, so a high shrink-swell area does not automatically mean higher premiums. A property with a documented subsidence history or ongoing monitoring is typically more expensive to insure, and some insurers will not cover the risk until remedial work is verified. Always get a buildings insurance quote for the specific address before exchange.

Does subsidence affect getting a mortgage?

A history of subsidence makes a property harder to mortgage. Lenders require evidence that the cause was identified, remedied and stabilised — typically a structural engineer's report confirming works and a monitored period with no further movement. Buildings insurance for previously subsided properties is also more expensive and some insurers will not cover the risk.

What causes subsidence in UK homes?

The majority of UK subsidence claims are caused by clay shrink-swell: high-plasticity clays shrink in dry summers and swell in wet periods, causing foundation movement. Large trees close to the house accelerate this by drawing moisture from the clay. Other causes include leaking drains washing away soil, historic mine workings, and poorly compacted made ground.

What is natural ground subsidence?

Natural ground subsidence is downward ground movement caused by geological processes rather than mining or construction. BGS GeoSure covers six natural ground-stability hazards: shrink-swell clay, collapsible deposits, compressible ground, landslides, running sand and soluble rocks. A susceptibility result flags the ground conditions; it does not prove that a specific building is moving.

Can I search a subsidence claims database for a property?

There is no public UK database that lets a buyer search every subsidence insurance claim by address. The insurance industry's CUE database holds home-insurance incidents, but MIB provides personal subject access rather than a public property lookup. Ask the seller for claim and repair documents, have your conveyancer raise enquiries, obtain an insurance quote before exchange and investigate any physical warning signs through a surveyor or structural engineer.

Keep going

Related guides

How MyPropertyScan produces this guide, and what it is not

Published by MyPropertyScan and written by Ziad Nasr, who is accountable for its accuracy. No page here is written or reviewed by a chartered surveyor, conveyancer or regulated adviser, and we do not claim otherwise.

This page is not:

Chartered surveying — we do not inspect properties or produce RICS Home Survey reports
Legal advice — we do not act as conveyancers or advise on title, tenure or contracts
Mortgage or insurance advice — we are not regulated by the FCA and give no recommendations

Figures and process steps come from the published UK datasets and standards listed on this page, not from professional practice. Pages are updated when source coverage, survey cost assumptions, or lender and legal requirements materially change. Dataset limitations are set out on the methodology page.

Spotted something out of date or wrong? Email hello@mypropertyscan.com and we will correct it and change the update date.

Sources used

We use UK public and specialist sources where they are available. Public datasets can be incomplete, delayed, or missing for some addresses. Treat them as a starting point, not as a replacement for professional advice.

Source standard: preference goes to official government datasets, statutory bodies, professional standards, and primary dataset publishers. We cite the source family on the page and explain coverage limits rather than filling gaps with unsupported estimates.

Check this with: Environment Agency long-term flood risk mapOfficial flood-risk service for England, including river, sea, surface water, reservoir and groundwater where available.
Data source: HM Land Registry Price Paid DataRegistered residential sale prices for England and Wales.
Official register: Energy Performance Certificate RegisterPublic EPC certificate lookup for an address, postcode, street or certificate number.
Data source: British Geological Survey Engineering Geology (1:1 million)National-scale bedrock and superficial-deposit mapping used as a directional ground indicator, not parcel-level GeoSure data or a site investigation.
Data source: Copernicus CAMS via Open-MeteoCurrent modelled PM2.5, NO₂ and European AQI from a nearby CAMS grid cell.
Data source: DEFRA Environmental Noise Directive mappingMapped road and rail noise contour data for England, classified into MyPropertyScan's low/moderate/high bands, and separate from the CAMS air-quality source.
Data source: Police.uk crime dataOpen street-level crime data for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Check this with: Ofcom broadband checkerOfficial checker for broadband availability and speeds.
Check this with: Ofcom mobile coverage checkerOfficial predicted mobile coverage by network.
Data source: Food Standards Agency food hygiene ratingsPublic register used to identify nearby food and drink venues.
Official register: Ofsted inspection reportsSchool and provider inspection report lookup for England. Fee-paying schools come from the DfE Get Information About Schools register, since around half are inspected by ISI and carry no Ofsted grade.
Official register: Historic England National Heritage ListListed buildings, scheduled monuments and other protected heritage entries in England.
Ground-stability source: BGS GeoSure shrink-swellThe parcel-scale premium BGS dataset covering clay shrink-swell susceptibility at 1:50,000 scale.
Claims-data limitation: MIB Claims and Underwriting Exchange subject accessCUE holds home-insurance incident data, but its public route is a subject access request for data about you, not an address-searchable property claims database.

General information only. Not legal, mortgage, insurance, or surveying advice. Always confirm with your own surveyor, broker, and conveyancer before making decisions. MyPropertyScan is operated by BiteRight Ltd.