A friend builder instead of an official surveyor?

tara747

naxtek wrote: »

We recently put an offer in on a house that was rejected. Before we made the offer though, we had a friend who is a builder check it out. He spotted loads of things we would never have noticed, and was a massive help to us for the meagre cost of a few beer tokens.

If our offer was accepted, we'd still have had a survey done though.

Getting someone to help you pick faults before paying for a survey is a massive bonus. If they find something, you can pull out of the deal without needing to spend much. But I wouldn't actually buy a property unless it had been surveyed properly.

alanmilstein wrote: »

I think that all the reasons for choosing a professional Surveyor (and I am a surveyor so, obviously, am biased!) have been made clearly by other contributors.
1. Your builder friend is not a trained surveyor. He won't be following a tried and tested inspection methodology, recording his findings, and providing a comprehensive written report.
2. If he does miss something vital then it is unlikely that he would have professional indemnity insurance to cover your claim against him.
3. Armed with a professionally prepared report provided by a surveyor you are much more likely to be able to renegotiate the price of the house you're buying, than discussing things "based on what my builder friend told me"

I would agree that it's probably worth having your builder friend look over the place for you in the early stages, but assuming you go ahead with the purchase then it does make sense to get a proper survey done (and please don't allow your lender to persuade you to "top up" your valuation to one of their surveys. Go for a good independent surveyor) before you exchange contracts so that you can renegotiate if necessary.

I agree with both of you. No harm in getting a friend to check it out - if he spots any major faults, you can pull out before spending £££ on a survey. But don't buy without a proper survey, imho.

dominoman

If he knows what he is doing and you trust him then it should be fine.

As others have said, if he misses something you won't have any comeback against him - but that is why surveyors cage their language quite carefully.

Personally I do use a surveyor, but I always meet him at the house at the end so he can give me his honest opinion. They will say things verbally that they can not risk putting into print.

The survey on the last house read like it was about to fall down, but when i spoke to him by phone he basically told me it was fine and nothing you wouldnt expect in a 120 year old house

Elsewhere

We only once used a surveyor as we were always cash buyers and my FIL was a builder.

The exception was my son's house which is in a mining area - near Stoke-on-Trent. I did quite a lot of Googling to try to discover whether there were specific issues - for instance we were unsure about subsidence problems with coal mining areas, and I discovered there is also a local problem with a material which was used in some of the house foundations which can swell and cause heave. So we did a once-over ourselves and when we decided we'd like to buy got a surveyor in for an expert opinion about the local issues.

So I'd say if the builder knows the area and the problems that arise, go for it. However if the house is miles away there could be problems he and you would never guess existed, so use a local surveyor.