Subsidence and survey?

brock-cruse

Hi
Just wondered if a basic valuation survey would pick up on signs of subsidence and recommend further investigation?
Thanks.

marybishop

Mortgage valuation is not a survey and if the surveyor does actually visit the property they are often not there for more than 5 mins just to make sure the property exists (sometimes they just do a drive by!!). So unless something is very obvious then it may not be picked up. Your best bet is to have either a Homebuyers Report or full structural survey.

brock-cruse

Thanks Mary.
The reason i ask is that our current property has a few cracks in the plaster on the walls (nothing on the outside of the building). When we bought the house we had a basic survey, our buyers that pulled out (not for this reason i hasten to add) had one and so has our current buyer. Not once have these cracks been brought up as an issue of concern. Both of our buyers surveyors were here about 20 mins so i know they at least didnt do a drive by and the one we had done came inside as i can tell from comments about flooring etc.
So therefore definatley not due to subsidence??

marybishop

Brock-cruse - if both surveyors were there for only 20 mins you can bet they were doing valuation surveys and not HR's or FSS's. Having said that if either of your buyers has paid for more than the valuation and the surveyor is only there for 20 mins they should be asking for their money back. There's no way either a HR or FSS can take 20 mins! I'm not the expert (OH is!) but pretty sure that subsidence would have corresponding cracks on the outside to the ones inside.

MABLE

We were going to sell our property a few years ago and the would be buyer had a basic survey carried out. The surveyor noted that there were cracks on the outside wall and some internal cracking. The buyers pulled out fearing after a 100 years the property was going to collapse.

We had our insurers in and the problem was identified by a problem with the drainage system. They repaired the drains and did some costmetic work and everything is now fine. The damage in our case was very minor but because we had to claim under Subsidance this is now noted in the deeds.

courtjester

brock-cruse wrote: »

Hi
Just wondered if a basic valuation survey would pick up on signs of subsidence and recommend further investigation?
Thanks.

No it won't.

A valuation survey is not done for the buyer, it is done for the lender and is SOLELY to consider whether the property has sufficient value to cover the mortgage loan in the event of default and repossession. It will NOT report on any structural matter nor can be relied upon to point out defects, it is not a condition survey at all.

Unfortunately, this doesn't stop most people from *thinking* that a valuation survey will point up any serious problems and relying upon the lender telling them if the purchase is risky.

I understand that only 1 in 5 surveys carried out is presently any more than a valuation, which means that most people take incredible risks when buying the biggest asset of their lives.

If you are selling, you need not concern yourself over the buyers survey or the cracks if they are ignored by the buyer or their surveyor - the law says that this is the buyers problem, not yours as long as you don't mislead anyone or try to hide the cracks.

If you are buying and you don't know whether the cracks are serious or not, make sure you get a proper condition survey - either a Homebuyers Report or full structural survey will comment on the relevance of any visible cracking.