How long should a full structural survey be?

feesh

I hope you can help - I'm new to all of this!
My boyfriend has asked his colleagues to recommend a surveyor for us to use on the house we are buying.

We want a full structural survey doing because it is a Victorian Terrace. One of his colleagues recommended a surveyor who does a full structural for £350 and has forwarded me the report he did when he bought his house in Feb.

I was quite surprised to see that it was badly written and only 7 pages long. I have read on here of surveyors' reports being over 30 pages long!

Is this all we can expect, or is this an example of a bad survey?

I'd really appreciate any help on this. The other option we have investigated was asking the mortgage lenders' approved surveyors to do us a full strucctural survey on top of their valuation survey but this was going to cost us another £650 on top of the valuation fee!

lilybugs

Our Building Survey (which I understand used to be called a Structural Survey) was about £800 for a Victorian Terrace which we are buying for £320k. We got a few quotes and this wasn't the cheapest but they were the quickest and so very, very helpful. The survey was about 25 - 30 pages long and the actual surveyor was available on his mobile to go through everything with us, which was great.

£350 seems extremely cheep for a Building Survey but not necessarily for a seven page document. I don't imagin you'll get much information from a seven page document though.

BTW, the valuation was done separately by the mortgage provider but we will get the fee for that refunded on completion.

marybishop

How many bedrooms does the property have? We base our fee on type of property i.e. number of bedrooms, whether terraced/semi/detached and within a certain radius of our office (over 10 miles we have to add a bit for travelling). The number of pages will obviously depend on the state of the property, obviously if it's in a poor state of repair then there is more to comment on. Also we include photographs to show exactly what is being talked about in the report. Don't know where you are based but we're in Surrey. If that's any help to you feel free to PM me and I can give you a quote. Alternatively I would suggest contacting the RICS Call Centre on 0870 333 1600 and asking for the details of surveyors in your area so that you can get some comparative quotations.

HTH

feesh

OK I've looked into a bit more now!

I have now convinced my other half that I don't think we actually need a full structural (buildings) survey - the house is in very good condition really (the vendors seem to be quite obsessed with quality), so I think a homebuyers (HSV) will be OK.

It's a 2-bed in Hertfordshire, should I post a link to the Rightmove ad?

The 7 page "survey" that my boyfriend's colleague had done was not done by a surveyor - it was done by a civil/structural engineer! Which explains a lot!!!!

I was thinking we should probably try and find a local RICS surveyor, for their local knowledge about any issues which might crop up in this area - is this right, or should I cast the net wider?

marybishop

Find a local RICS surveyor(s) and get quotes for both types of surveys, you may find there is not much difference in the price and for peace of mind on that age property it may be worth paying the extra for the full survey. We don't tell clients which type of survey to have as we are not allowed to, can only recommend based on age/type of property. At the end of the day it's up to the client to decide which to go for. The RICS website gives you the definitions of survey types which you might find useful.

Good luck.

lowis

if it helps i was recently advised that if i had been buying an older property "such as a victorian or georgian property" then a full survey would be advisable.

i went for a homebuyer (1950's flat), the surveyor was there for about 30 mins and the report was 22 pages long. no pictures.

lilyann1

We had homebuyers report and it was 25 - 30 pages long and very detailed.
It cost about £550 (4 bed detached) and I thought a full structural would be about £1k in this area!!!

marybishop

That's interesting - a HB on a 4 bed detached would be £540 and a full S/S would be £660 with us! Can't see how they could justify charging double for the full survey!