Anyone used a Tree Consultant to advise on trees near to a property prior to offer?

Better_Days

The trees are mature at least the height of the chalet bungalow. The willow is about 11m away from the house and the oak about the same or a little further away. There are also 2 large conifers both nearer to the property. Currently in drought here after 3 successive dry winters.

I have emailed a couple of tree consultants from the Arboricultural Association http://www.trees.org.uk/find-a-professional/Find-A-Professional to ask for quotes.

My thinking is that a surveyor will probably advise getting specialist advice and I don't want to put in an offer until I know what it will cost to assess the trees.

Does this sound sensible in the circumstances or is there something I haven't considered? Anyone been down this route?

teneighty

It depends what advice you want about the trees, an arboriculturalist can only really advise you about the condition of the trees.

If you are worried about potential subsidence, that is only an issue if the property is built on a shrinkable sub-soil like clay. You would need to seek advice from a structural engineer or building surveyor for that.

DannyboyMidlands

As teneighty says, the tree consulant will tell you what you already know ie the species of tree, condition, mature height and distance from the house. So pretty pointless.

To sort out what seems to be worrying you, you would need:

- A ground investigation to discover soil type
- A trial hole to discover foundation depth
- A structural engineer to compare all these factors

How old is the house?

Better_Days

Thanks for your thoughts teneighty and DannyboyMidlands. This is all new ground for me but from what I can gather from the website I mentioned there are 2 specialisms:
1. Tree Contractors or Tree Surgeons who provide felling, pruning maintenance services
2. Tree Consultants who advise on safety, preservation, trees and planning and trees and buildings, giving evidence in court if necessary, assessing trees for hazard and suggesting remedial work

It is the cost of the advice from the latter that I am interested in before deciding whether or not to make an offer.

The house is probably no more than 50 years old.

DannyboyMidlands

Unless you have clay then you are worrying about nothing. What is the postcode?

If it is clay, make sure they include for ivestigation of soil type and depth of existing foundation. However I doubt the vendor will agree to the required investigations.

Even if it is clay, and they do allow you get the work done I would bet that you would be told something along the lines of "if built today the existing foundations would not be of sufficient depth to satisfy current regulations, however the building is showing no signs of distress at this time blah blah blah". Still not much use.

Better_Days

Thanks DannyboyMidlands - I suppose what I am looking for is an assessment of risk, but from what you say any assessment would be so littered with caveats as to be worthless.

May well be clay, which is why I am concerned, postcode is IP31 3NJ. Is it possible to identify soil type from postcode?

DannyboyMidlands

If it is clay, an oldish house (nobody really cared about this stuff before the long hot summer of 1976) and there are thirsty Willows nearby then there is a risk. You know that, I know that, everybody knows that. You're not going to get some expert to put his c*ck on the block and advise you to buy or not buy.

You can find the soil type to some extent from the BGS website. Not as detailed as it used to be but still helpfull. You seem to have glacial till.

Better_Days

Thanks DannyboyMidlands, it is very useful to read your views. Had a quick look at the BGS website, and will do some more detailed research surrounding soil type.

Will just have to decide if we want to take the risk and if so what to offer taking the risk into account.

EA said no-one else has mentioned this issue. However the property has been on the market since March 2011, with three price drops totaling over 13%, I do wonder if she was being economical with the truth. Property could also do with some internal updating which doesn't help it's marketability, and knowing this particular EA, it is easily possible that the property was over valued at the outset.

DannyboyMidlands

"EA said no-one else has mentioned this issue....."

Funny that.

I once viewed a house where the bay window was pertty much falling off, most of the other houses had replacements, the whole road was cracked and undulating all over the place.

According to the EA apparently "no-one else had mentioned this issue".