Foundation support adequate

[Kathryn Schauer]

In the initial walk through of a duplex I have under contract, we noticed cracking along the outside of the foundation:

We asked the owner about this and they said they recently had an engineer out to assess the foundation and he wrote:  

"In this case, however, piers near the front wall are supported by a degraded soil bank. Slow spalling and erosion are evident (Photo 3). There is evidence of previous water flow (Photo 4).

As an abundance of caution, the piers should be shored. As a minimum, wood forms may be placed and concrete, gravel, or soil added around piers for greater stability. Retaining walls could be constructed for long term property upgrade."  The photos of what he's talking about are here:

The current owner went with the minimum recommendation and built boxes around the dirt and backfilled with gravel:

At this point I just need to decide if I want to continue with this property.  

I'd love to hear opinions from those of you who are more experienced and who may have seen something like this before.  I could walk away at this point, or go ahead with further inspections, with extra scrutiny on the foundation issue, and the fix that has been installed so far.  Thanks for any input.

[Heath M.]

I'd have to say that would give me some pause.  Probably not a complete deal breaker but I'd want a considerable concession off the asking price because of it.  And you'll probably need to do some landscaping to prevent any future issues or keep it from getting worse.  Lastly, I'm not a huge fan of that fix but it'll hold.