Structural Surveyor suggestion...please help its urgent

manan.shah.82

Hello,

We have found a house which we liked very much and luckily our offer has been accepted.

I need a suggestion on which surveyor should I go for full structural survey?? I want to do full structural survey because house is quite old (early 1900) and it has damp on ground floor. I have got the estimate for the damp treatment but I really want to make sure there is nothing else alarming in this property.

I'm planning mortgage through ING so I thought I'll ask their preferred surveyor to do full structural survey. I found that ING uses esurv but when I searched for esurv review in this forum I found lots of people are not happy with them and don't recommend them.

Can anyone please share their recent experience with esurv or any other good surveyor who gives real and detailed survey? Few people have recommended "Direct Valuations"? is this the same as www(.dot)direct-valuations(.dot)com has any one got any recent experience with them?

Though I wanted to do structural survey done through the preferred surveyor to save around £200 but if esurv is not good then I won't mind going to others for peace of mind...

Guys please help me; it's urgent....

Thank you very much in advance!

G_M

This is where to look.

manan.shah.82

G_M..Thanks for the link to RICS website..I had a look at the website before but couldn't find any feedback on surveyors.

I'll appreciate if someone can share his/her experience with esurv, direct valuations or any other surveyor.

Thank you!

JQ.

I think it would help is you stated the location of the property.

FireWyrm

I found my surveyor on the RICS website. I applied to about 6 in total, 2 didnt even bother to reply, the others sent quotes. Some were competative, some weren't and I just went for the bloke in the middle who actually sent me a personal email. I've been very happy with his work. I actually met him at the house we were having surveyed so I could speak to him and get to know him a little. He seemed very competant and I've had no trouble at all with his work. The full structural survey ran to 40+ pages with additional appendecies of photos. He's had to do 3 surveys for me so far and I've had no problem recommending him to everyone else in my immediate circle who needs a survey done. If you are within the Milton Keynes, Northampton, Daventry area, I can PM you his details. Other than that, there's not allot anyone can tell you since surveys and prices differ from area to area.

ruggedtoast

I had an ING esurv survey. The survey itself seemed about normal (couldn't open this, couldn't access that, couldn't see the other with binoculars etc), however it was impossible to contact the surveyor afterwards to ask for clarification on a point which we later pulled out of the sale because of.

It also cost almost twice as much as one of those surveyor supermarket sites you get when you do a google search, such we used the second time.

manan.shah.82

Thank you very much guys for your responses.

Proerpty is located in East London/ Essex area.

I have seen good reviews for Miller MetCalfe so I'm thinking I'll go for homebuyer's survey with esurv and full structural survey with Miller MetCalfe. esurv just because ING wants to go through them; though I can go for simple valuation survey but it will be good to compare two reports just to make sure nothing is missed in either of the reports? Any thoughts?

Regards,

phoebe1989seb

The people who bought our house (we completed at end of May) had esurv carry out their Homebuyers Report. Whilst the surveyor seemed very thorough (3 and a half hours to survey our 1600 sq ft detached house) when our buyers got the report back and wanted to discuss various points with us we discovered that certain errors had been made by the surveyor. For instance, he said that our brand new water cylinder was made of asbestos when it very clearly wasn't and that our chimney stacks required repointing - when they had been professionally done within the last four years. He also said there was woodworm infestation in the attic - when my DH and our buyers went to investigate this for themselves only three or four woodworm holes could be found in the whole attic space! Also despite his references to asbestos that didn't exist, he failed to spot an asbestos ceiling in an attached outbuilding as well as making no mention of several slipped or broken roof tiles despite spending ages photographing the roof!!! There were other minor errors too numerous to mention, but DH had a thorough perusal of the survey at our buyers' invitation.

I must admit we began to wonder if the surveyor had got our house's report mixed up with someone else's :eek:

Whilst none of this deterred our buyers, I certainly wouldn't choose esurv to survey a property I was considering purchasing! Hope this helps!

ruggedtoast

manan.shah.82 wrote: »

Thank you very much guys for your responses.

Proerpty is located in East London/ Essex area.

I have seen good reviews for Miller MetCalfe so I'm thinking I'll go for homebuyer's survey with esurv and full structural survey with Miller MetCalfe. esurv just because ING wants to go through them; though I can go for simple valuation survey but it will be good to compare two reports just to make sure nothing is missed in either of the reports? Any thoughts?

Regards,

If you have money coming out of your ears then by all means pay for three surveys. Otherwise there is no point paying for a valuation survey, and homebuyer survey with esurv (who no one recommends) when you intend to have a full buildings survey done by someone else.

You would be much better off putting the money towards another surveyor.

manan.shah.82

Thank you all for your replies.

At the moment I have decided I'll have basic valuation from esurv and building survey by Miller Metcalfe. I'll update this post with my final decision and findings/feedbacks on the surveyor.

BTW, I was surprised to hear Miller Metcalfe quoted only 360 inc VAT (after 10% discount) while I have heard that stuctural survey ususlly costs around 1000. Does that sound ok or something is fishy???

Yorkie1

Are you sure you've asked for the correct survey?