Deferred Maintenance and How It Can Be Misinterpreted as Foundation Issues

By Michael R. Simpson, PE, Geotechnical and Forensic Engineer

Lately, we've been inspecting more homes where owners inherited the house and are concerned about the foundations due to cracking and general overall worn condition. It's not surprising—as the Boomer generation ages, we're encountering more of this. Often, the new owners inherited the home and want to sell but lack long-term knowledge of the home's maintenance history. They may live out of state, and real estate agents, eager to ensure proper disclosure, raise valid concerns.

It's common for an older person, to consciously or unconsciously decide to minimally maintain the home. In essence, they recognize they won't outlast the house and figure their descendants can just sell it as-is.

This condition is known in the industry as deferred maintenance. Deferred maintenance refers to the postponement of necessary repairs, upkeep, and replacements on a property, often due to budget constraints, lack of resources, or prioritizing short-term savings over long-term costs. A good resource for gauging the useful life of home components is the Fannie Mae Estimated Useful Life table, freely available online here. Originally created for evaluating apartment buildings, it's widely applicable to single-family residences. For instance, the table lists exterior paint with a useful life of about 5 years and stucco at 50+ years. It's common to inspect a 50-year-old home that's gone unpainted for over 20 years, leaving the stucco deteriorated and prone to cracking. When stucco cracks—starting as hairline in size widen due to weathering—the untrained eye might mistake it for foundation settlement. (For reference, Fannie Mae rates foundations at 50+ years – Note: if your foundation is over the 50-year mark, it doesn’t necessarily mean it needs work or replacement). In reality, these are often superficial mimics of foundation settlement. An improper inspection diagnosis could have you buying thousands of dollars of foundation repairs which are unnecessary.

For these reasons and others, it's crucial to have such concerns evaluated by a registered professional engineer (P.E.) with forensic experience, specializing in geotechnical and/or structural engineering. A foundation contractor (and their sales staff) or even a home inspector typically lacks the expertise to distinguish deferred maintenance from actual movement.