Choosing a building surveyor - what to ask/check?

valmiki

Hi,

First a quick background filler...

We've seen a house we like, parts of which are 100 years old, single-brick, etc. It clearly needs some work doing to it, but on the surface looks mostly like redecoration. However the seller is only interested in 'proceedable offers' so we have just put our house on the market and have had some interest. We can't make an offer on that house until we have at least had an offer on ours.

OK, so...

Ideally I would like to have an in-depth building survey on the house done. If it doesn't come back too horrendous (ie. not condemned!), then we can be armed with useful info when making an offer if and when we find a buyer for ours.

I was just wondering on what to potentially ask surveyors, ie. liability insurance, etc.? I've already had a look at the RICS website but I wanted some 'real world' advice, if you know what I mean, and if I'm paying good money then I don't particularly want a report full of get outs recommending more surveys!

Also, if I have such a survey done, will my mortgage company require another similar one or would they accept the one that I have done? I will be porting my mortgage.

Would appreciate any advice, if it helps the house we're looking at is a rather large 4 bed detached with multiple downstairs rooms, on a decent size plot with incline driveway and a flat roof garage attached.

regards
valmiki

scooter_chick

When I had mine done last year, I contacted a few surveyors from the RICS website who were local to the property to ask for a quote. I picked the one that seemed the easiest to communicate with - the important thing to me that as I was spending ££££, I wanted to be able to discuss the survey with him when he'd done it. This turned out to be very useful - partly for the stuff I didn't really understand, and also for getting a more candid view of some of the issues. Plus he was able to recommend local specialist for the further surveys - such as the electrics, which no surveyor is going to do.

The vendor's estate agent moaned at me that I'd picked the 'strictest' surveyor in the area, which made me laugh - I don't know if he was hoping that I'd ignore the results or something. And yes - he was overly picky in a few areas - a velux window he recommended replacing cos it was a bit sticky was fixed with a generous squirt of WD40 - but it did give me the confidence of knowing exactly what I was letting myself in for - the house is alot more than 100 years old in parts!

In terms of the mortgage co, the one I was using would only offer a valuation or Homebuyers anyway, they wouldn't do a full structural, so I went for the valuation with them as it was cheaper!

valmiki

Thanks for the reply scooterchick - did you ask to see their liability insurance or anything like that? how much did you pay (if you don't mind me asking), also did the report include everything you thought you would see (not with regard to the house, but with what was covered in the report)

thanks again
valmiki

scooter_chick

Hi,

No, I didn't ask to see their insurance or anything. Doesn't mean I shouldn't have though ;-)

I think I paid around £1000, for all the surveyors I contacted, they based their quote on the number of bedrooms and the price that I was paying. I don't know if there are regional differences in price, but I'm in the South East. The surveyor I went with was mid-range in the quotes I got, but the one I felt happiest speaking on the phone to. As a result I got £5k off the agreed price, so it was money well spent!

The surveyor spent 2 days in the house, apparantly crawled to bits of the loft that the vendors had never been in (nor have I), and contained far more than I was expecting. It honestly took a great deal of willpower to sit & read all the way through 30-odd pages of rather dry description of various layers of roof covering etc! That's why I then spent plenty of time on the phone to him making sure I understood how important the stuff he'd reported actually was. But I don't know what I was expecting TBH - my previous property was a flat bought when I was young & silly enough to just get a valuation.

Hope that helps!