Timber and Damp surveys

ds1980

Survey has shown that there are some timber and damp problems in the house and has advised us to get these looked at.

What would be the best plan?

Speak to estate agent and see what vendor says?

Would we get them to pay for the survey?

Any help would be great.

thanks,

cattie

First of all it's perfectly normal & usual for a surveyor to recommend you get timber, damp & electrics checked out when buying a property.

It's not normal to ask for a vendor to pay for such survey's & inspections though. You can speak to the ea as sometimes they have contacts with such tradesmen & can arrange for them to have a look & give you a report.

However, If not, then you should be able to find a reputable local firm to give you free advice. Make sure they offer an insurance backed guarantee & avoid any of the often cowboy merchants who advertise using freefone numbers & state that they operate in every area that surrounds yours.

I've never had to pay for any such report & have met with honesty when no serious problem was detected. If in any doubt then get 2 seperate companies in 2 check it over to see if they both agree on what work needs doing.

If work does need doing then you can try to negotiate with the seller to at least pay half the cost of remedial work.

Bergaspeed

we had to get timber, damp, electrics and a roof survey done and asked the EA if they would get them done for us.

The EA agreed to get the timber, damp and roof surveys done but we had to get the electrics done ourselves.

The electrics came back a needing a rewire but theT,D & R all came back fine, unfortuinatly the t&D report should have been done by someone who was BWPDA approved and it wasn't so we have had to organise it ourselves, Which we did yesterday and the company doing it for us is doing it for free:j

Tiger_greeneyes

If in doubt, your estate agent usually has a little black book with companies such as timber and damp/electricians/local authorities etc in. They also want the sale/purchase to go ahead and will help you all they can