Building Survey

garcon6

Need some feedback regarding our Building survey as I am not convinced that they did a full survey (building survey) it cost us nearly £800 the report was not thorough as we would have liked.

We have recently purchased a house and have a five year fixed mortgage with the Leeds building society. The valuation was done and we also instructed them to have a Building Survey done (full survey) (£1,100 contribution from the Leeds towards this was £330).


The Leeds use an independent company E-Surv for the building survey. We have found that since having the keys that there are a number of things that have not been mentioned in the survey such as:

Locks on the windows are old and do not open easily

There was wiring from the outside of the house (back garden) that leads to the shed that has a light/trip but our electrician said that the cable protecting the wiring was not suitable for outdoor use this was not even mentioned in the report.

Also no mention of the garden shed as it has become rotten etc and will need replacing.

A couple of damp patches in one of the rooms not mentioned.


Under the section of Limitations of inspection:

"At the time of our inspection, the property was owner occupied and furnished with fitted floor coverings provided in most areas. This severely restricted our inspection".

Surely if the owners are there and we pay them to have a full survey done then it should be done.

Any advice welcome, and also when you are trying to talk to e-serv they just palm you off with a different department.

thanks,

garcon6

Milliewilly

Interesting - the survey that was done by ESurv on my house last year that caused the buyers to pull out was staggeringly nit picky eg opening and closing all the kitchen cupboard doors and taking the panel off the bottom of the shower tray, commenting that there was no weatherboard on the bottom of the garage door (but failing to notice the drain running along the bottom of the door and the slope of the concrete away from the door). Depends on the surveyor I suppose.

Are the damp patches somewhere where you think they would have been visible at the time of inspection?

poppysarah

Did your survey include the garden?

Did the survey say "get an electrical survey done"?

garcon6

On the list of content it list under the General Section:

Garage(s) and outbuildings

The Site:

They checked the boundary walls/fencing and noted that they are in reasonably serviceable, although minor repairs are required due to typical wear and tear.

Also there are no significant hazards noted within the boundaries so they must have looked at the garden

garcon6

The survey did not say to get an electrical survey done/ the damp patches have been cleaned and gone away. One of the damp patches was where the ariel lead came from the ceiling so the person who did the survey should have notice that.

Milliewilly

The first thing you need to do is get an answer from E-Surv and take things from there if you see fit.

If they don't repsond by phone write to them recorded delivery. This is better as if you are going to get into a dispute then you need accurate records.

You also need to consider if the points raised are serious enough to warrant a potential long drawn out and costly legal wrangle as a Judge will look at the cost versus the cost of bringing proceedings.


Interested as to why you have an electrician in looking at the outside cabling after you have completed if there were no alarm bells raised in the survey?

garcon6

There was no mention of outside cabling leading to the shed in the survey, anyway i will contact e-surv.

Thanks,

garcon6