Buying a house with stump problems: a buyer's playbook
A house with tired stumps isn't a house to avoid — it's a house to buy correctly. Restumping is a known, fixable, quotable job. Here's how sharp regional buyers handle it.
Spotting it at the open
- Bring a marble. Sloping floors reveal themselves in seconds.
- Open and close every door and window on the south and west sides (the sides that usually move first).
- Look for fresh paint over diagonal crack lines at door/window corners.
- Peek at the subfloor vents: leaning stumps, damp ground, or ant caps rusted through are visible from outside.
- Pre-1970 weatherboard? Assume original timber stumps until proven otherwise.
Before you sign
A building inspection is standard; for older timber homes, add a specialist stump inspection — an inspector who actually crawls the full subfloor and counts. "Some stump movement noted" in a generic report can mean anything from $3,000 to $22,000. A stump count and condition map turns fear into a number.
The negotiation maths
Full restump of a 3BR weatherboard: $12,000–$22,000. If the report shows failing stumps, that's your renegotiation figure — real money, backed by paper, on a job the vendor would otherwise face themselves. Many regional buyers effectively get their restump paid for at settlement.
After you buy
Restump before renovating. Level the frame first, then plaster and paint — never the reverse; new plaster over moving frames cracks within a year. And keep the permit and certification with your records: it's proof of quality for the next sale.