I am currently looking to buy a property as a cash buyer (Due to selling my father's house under probate)
As there is no mortgage it is entirely up to me what type of survey (or none at all) that I commission.
I am thinking I will need a RICS surveyor who would presumably hold professional indemnity insurance should there be any major issues down the line.
What type of survey should I be looking for and how much should I expect to pay?
The property is a 3 bed bungalow in the South East.
Any thoughts gratefully received
Assuming the house isn’t that old and looks in good repair I wouldn’t bother with much more than a standard Home Buyers Report. Unfortunately Surveyors are so wary of being sued that the reports are relatively vague and non-commitalOriginally Posted by Kevin
If you do have ‘any major issues down the line’, the surveyor won’t be responsible or liable for them. Paragraph 1, Clause 1 will say something to that effect.
The joke used to be that the basic mortgage valuation was where the valuer changed down to second as he drove past.
I paid £500 for a structural surveyor's report a couple of years ago and that was a waste of money too. He didn't seem familiar with the concept of a "professional opinion". Utter scam.
I have bought a couple of properties in and around Brighton, each time the survey has been so vague to be next to useless.
I was at a fiends house the other week when a surveyor called to survey the property. He was there less than five minutes.
Granted, the house is only two years old and he was carrying out a homebuyers survey but he didn’t even go upstairs.
You’re probably better off getting a reputable builder to have a look at it and point out any potential issues.
I've just bought a house under similar circumstances - it had the remaining few years of an NHBC warranty and as there were no obvious defects I decided to do without a survey (I looked for cracks, damp patches etc, checked that doors and windows worked properly and so on).
As have been said, basic surveys do have loads of caveats (and the last time I had one and asked about a large internal crack the surveyor said it was probably ok but I would need further investigation to make sure). But surveyors will lift drains and check the roof space if they can access them and the reports can be interesting to read if an older building.
I am pretty sure other threads have suggested the main points to look for if you decide to go it alone - if you do, you need to be systematic.
It might be worth reading a completed survey if you can get one, to see what you get?
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As Mike says,
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
There is another side to this. My BIL is a building surveyor, and turns down clients who don’t want a full structural survey, but want “Just look at the foundations and roof” (for example - as a cheaper option because they reckon everything else is okay). The reason he turns them away - is that if anything develops in the walls or somewhere else later - that client will start a claim against him on the basis that “Well, he should have noticed that when he was there”. It matters not if the claim has any merit - it is still damaging. So damaging, that surveyors often roll over to prevent that.
He and my sister can usually sense which potential clients are going to be problematic from the first phone call, if the client asks: “Do you have professional indemnity cover?” They turn those ones down. (Word gets around surveyors of clients who put in spurious claims).
You get the same attitude to surveyors as you do to car dealers, from a significant percentage of the population: “They are robbing b88tards!” But in the next breath: “I had an intermittent fault in the gearbox, gonna cost me a bomb! So I traded it in. Best way mate!”
Yeah, it’s easy to take it out on the dealer/surveyor, but a huge percentage of the population will do anything to claw money back with no real basis.
If you feel that surveyors are like “Stealers” - have the integrity to shun them completely for ever. Do it yourself - Just trawl through youtube and crack on.
Hahaha!! Never heard that one before. Very funny....and true!
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I think you misunderstood - I'm not against surveyors. I would value their expertise in the right circumstances for me. Hence explaining what I have done in the past and making the suggestion to review a survey so the op can understand what they may get if they go down that route.
As an alternative, and if you trust your own knowledge to spot the obvious problems, is it possible to insure against nasty post purchase surprises?
I would expect any chartered surveyor to have indemnity insurance surely it is mandatory?
Ditto, in fact I am a surveyor but only deal with commercial properties and land. It's the suing/blame culture that's the problem and there's only so much a surveyor can see when undertaking a Home Buyers. If there's a crack they can only give their best guess as to why it's there, or whether it's getting worse - unless you want them to put a tell tale across it and return months later.
I had a Home Buyers Report undertaken on my house which we bought last year and it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know but did it for peace of mind in case I'd missed anything.
No - I started go give the other side of the coin and then expanded beyond what you personally had implied. It was not a rebuke to you. Sorry if it seemed that way.
It is mandatory, but when someone specifically asks that on the phone - it rings alarm bells due to this "culture" in the UK.
It did rather but all OK :)
As with all things in life, there is always good and bad so the same is true of surveyors.
I have seen some very good and some very bad surveyors reports, but I have also experienced many more clients who do not understand the concept that they have appointed someone who is professionally obligated to tell them what is WRONG (or potentially wrong) with a property, so then seem surprised when the report doesn't give an 'all clear' verdict they were looking for.
Unfortunately, despite what many clients think/expect, surveyors do not have x-ray eyes and cannot see defects/issues which may be present but are concealed. In this context, a decent surveyor would likely (or rather should) raise a warning flag over such issues based on their experiences of other similar properties, but a lazy one will just hide behind heavy caveats and exemption clauses. The issue with this then becomes; if the surveyor raises lots of warning flags, then they will likely be viewed and 'covering their backsides' just to be sure, and some surveyors do exactly that to ensure they are not liable for anything at all.
I am not an RICS surveyor, but do carry out specialist surveys on buildings and nearly always find a defect that the buyer was unaware of so they can make an informed decision as to whether to proceed with the sale or not. I would however say that around 50-60% of the reports I see are not worth the paper they are written on.
From another perspective - I have always managed to negotiate more off the selling price than the report has cost me.
I know very little about buildings, and the houses we have bought have mostly been older, individual properties, so I've been happy to pay for specialist advice, normally at the "full structural" level rather than "homebuyers".
If I were buying a modern house which appeared (to my uneducated eyes) to be in good condition, then I'd probably bring a trusted builder with me instead of getting a survey done.
This is exactly my experience for around 70% of the surveys I have carried out for clients. The other side can be that the client has been informed about an issue that they did not know about, so decided to withdraw from the sale rather than buy a property with more issues than they want to repair.
Either way, the cost of the survey has paid dividends.
I can't think of many other things people would spend such VAST sums of money on without spending £1k (ish) on due diligence before they buy.
Thanks everyone for all the responses.
I had forgotten that a friend of a friend who I have met quite a few times at gigs etc is a structural engineer.
I had a chat with him and he recommended a couple of surveyors.
I have gone with a Chartered Building Surveyor who does not do RICS House Buyer surveys. He regards them as tick box documents that require no real knowledge to fill in and are of no value to the buyer.
I was also told that a full structural survey is almost impossible/impractical to do to do because by it's nature it is destructive. The foundations would have to be exposed to survey them.
I price checked his quote using an specialist Internet search. I set the search up at 1.30 in the morning
The search engine responded with the best 4 quotes. Four surveyors firms responded immediately with exactly the same price. All offering RICS House buyer reports within 7 days. Their emails were formulaic and reinforced the tick box comments. The majority of the emails were taken up by listing all the things they wouldn't do and wouldn't be liable for.
I think I will go with a recommendation of a local surveyor who will hopefully give me a detailed informative report
We will see how it goes!
House buyers surveys.....just another way of getting money out of you.
We sold our house back last year and the buyer organised a house buyers survey, guy was there 3 hours but never ventured in to the loft.
He told the wife that he’d found moisture in the walls downstairs but it wasn’t a major issue. 2 days later gets the report and he’d done a number on us.
Said that the damp was extensive coming from outside, the entire outside wall needed to be repointed and the internal insulation had to be removed.
He also added on that the wall ties were likely to be corroded and wall collapse was a possibility,!
Our buyer obviously bricked it, started asking for huge discounts which of course we rejected. Anyway the buyer then, at his expense, had a professional damp chap come out who with some fancy cameras and meters and said the chap who did the survey was talking out his arse.
All the survey did was add an extra 3 stressful weeks to the already stressful situation. I lodged a complaint against the chap but they weren’t interested and we were told it was what he found at the time. Basically he thought we had an issue and covered is arse with Teflon. Knob
Some of the quotes I got for a survey were more than I am being charged by my solicitor for the conveyancing.
I would guess between £600 and £1,500 depending on the location and value of the house being surveyed. Usually over £1m the price will be higher as the amount the surveyor could be sued for will Increase.
We used ReallyMoving.com to get competive quotes for surveys and then cross referenced the proposals against online reviews. The survey gave us a level of peace of mind that there were no major (unanticipated) gotchas.
Why do you think that shouldn't be the case?
If the surveyor's hourly rate is three times that of the solicitor then it is entirely reasonable.
It might well be, but if a surveyor only does say 2 surveys a day as he's travelling and then writing up a report instead of a solicitors 9-5 hours then it might be justified. I have no idea if thats the case but just playing devils advocate.
Cheers..
Jase
I have bought a modest number of properties over the past 10 years. One was purchased using a mortgage, and the age of the property meant an in depth survey was demanded. It was a list of "a buyer should check xyz with an expert", giving no proper opinion or guidance. Basically an exercise in avoiding liability.
When my OH had her home for sale the bank valuation said it couldn't value it as there were some cracks in the plaster at the ceiling. Like, seriously? The buyer then spent 500 pounds more on a "full" survey, which recommended everything to bring it to 2019 building spec. Crazy.
Since that first purchase, everything else I have taken a step ladder and torch and checked the thing thoroughly myself.
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Generally most conveyancing is carried out by secretaries within the legal practice, with only minimal intervention from a Legal Assistant/Solicitor at key points throughout the process, all of which is office based.
A surveyor who is appointed to carry out a decent quality survey report on the other hand has to travel in order to visit the property and then draft a bespoke report themselves, so do the lions share of the work required. A professionally qualified surveyor will be on a substantially higher salary than legal administrative staff would be paid and has travel costs to take into account too.
100% with this.... We purchased an 'older' property this time last year. Because of the age we pushed the boat out and went for a full Building Survey.... ISTR this was one notch down from the highest option. ISTR c. £400 quid (probably plus VAT).
12 months later I can honestly say a waste of money. We've found floor boards in one room completely wood wormed. VERY dodgy electrics. Heating oil tank on the point of total collapse etc... The problem is the report is also full of get out clauses etc... won't check electrics, won't move furniture or carpets. Won't test boiler...etc... A waste of money. My advice is check the property as best you can your self and get the cheapest survey that will satisfy the mortgage people.
I started work in general practice surveyors office in the mid 1960's and went on the qualify as a Chartered Surveyor. I accompanied one of the structural surveyors from time to time.
The practice then was that a builder was in attendance during the inspection. The purpose of this was to sort out ladders for access to all roof areas and then to lift the drain covers to facilitate a drains test, usually a smoke test.
All the services were checked, water, electrical and space heating ( if any ) it wasn't common then.
One surveyor insisted that his reports were bound and secured with sealing wax.
If you choose to instruct a surveyor, I would suggest that local knowledge of the area is vital. In the area of London I worked bomb impact damage could give rise to misleading views of any wall fractures, but perhaps of more importance they were familiar with the make up of the ground conditions, local flooding, subsidence and heave.
OP your money, your choice. Good luck.
I don't really care who does the work.
The end product is what matters, at least with the solictor you end up with something tangible, ownership of the house, with land registry updates and searches undertaken on, rights of way, build over enquiries for sewerage, searches for development, etc etc.
Rather than a surveyor giving you a list of things that you should get an expert to look at.
The surveyor should be the expert and should define what needs doing and be able to instruct builders how to do remedial works, not tell you to get advice from a builder.
I get that you pay your money and take your choice but it increasingly looks like the RCIS Home Buyers survey is a complete waste of time.
If you’re happy with the price you are paying I would go and get a Structural Engineers report. So from day one you know what you’ve got. You could pay out for ( the same) surveyor to do a basic survey , a homebuyers or a ‘full survey and the conclusion for any of those 3 could be ‘ I recommend a structural engineers report’
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My reply explained why the surveyors costs were higher than the solicitors costs, which is what you queried, but I assume what you were actually questioning was your perceived value of the two services, which only you can decide.
From your latest post you seem to have already made up your mind which way to go, so I will leave it with you. Hope it all works out.
These threads follow a pretty basic formulae. OP asks for advice, post after post of this and that and the end result is confusion and invariably a warning against using a professional. Use a structural engineer? Will they have a full awareness of likely issues around damp, or the roof, or the electrics or why the toilet doesn’t flush? Or are they likely to suggest getting a tradesman to look into these further? Do the survey yourself? Are you confident enough to look at a crack in a wall and not worry about it, or will you end up getting a structural engineer or building surveyor in to look at it somewhere down the line anyway? Ask a builder to provide ‘an idea’? How likely is it that you find yourself six months on, living in a building site not knowing what is going on? I’ve completed many building inspections but only for people that have purchased a building or home without a mortgage and who are aiming to complete alterations. My business partner, a chartered building surveyor, no longer completes Home Buyer Reports as he couldn’t compete with the kerbside surveyors and the market became too litigious, with a race to the bottom on fees. Our practice now only completes Home Condition Reports, for buildings built after 1945 or Building Surveys, for buildings built before 1945 or that are listed or that the purchaser intends to alter. All are priced to allow for a professional to visit, inspect, scrutinise what can be scrutinised without smashing holes in the walls or crawling around under floorboards, and to provide a report which sets out observations, budget costs and next steps. Good Building Surveying is all about forensically analysing the building and providing a report of same but there will always be an element of unknown.
If you add into that mix the employed professionals 'duty to warn', which is viewed by 95% of people as 'arse covering' then we pretty well have a perfect storm!
Amusingly, as I read this thread a "pop up" ad appeared for a RICS surveyor based in Sheffield!
I was charged as an Executor to sell a house and distribute the proceeds. First action was RICS valuation for probate.
The chap was very thorough and identified some major structural faults which discounted his valuation considerably.
When the house was eventually put on the market the purchaser only elected for a valuation survey for the lender.
I had a 2 hour drive to the property for a 7minute meeting which agreed the full MV for the property.
A Chartered Structural Engineer advised me to get a Building Surveyor to do a survey and report. He also recommended a couple of Chartered Building Surveyors who he has worked with in the past. He did not offer or recommend a Structural Survey
He said that if there were any structural defects identified by the Building Surveyor then he would advise.
He also said that full structural surveys will very rarely be done when someone is purchasing a house unless a major rebuild is planned.
A structural survey is destructive as it needs to expose the foundations and check the structure, he certainly didn't advise that I had one.
Interestingly enough neither of the two Chartered Building Surveyors he recommended offered a RICS Home Buyers Report, they both said they were not worth the paper they are written on but are a tick box exercise .
I have now engaged one of the two mentioned above and he is doing the survey next week.
We will see what happens!
As a matter of interest, we’re the faults disclosed to the purchaser? I thought that these days there is now some obligation to disclose certain issues. Even problems neighbours, I think I heard, need to be disclosed.
If you are the executor you would be unlikely to know the answers to many questions.
It is up to a purchaser to commission their own survey if they (or their lending company) wish.
+1
I had a surveyor report, but any niggles stated get structural engineer or qualied electrician or etc to check.
I then engaged a local structural engineering firm and they were great as they could actually provide expert opinion and said they did surveys and combined them too. Would use similar in the future if needed to and actually did (for party wall)
I think local knowledge of topography and geogolgy means they can give a better informed opinion with less need for invasive investigation and passing the buck.
I spoke to one RICS surveyor prior to buying my house. His fee was sub £1000 for a three bedroom semi in suburban London
He went on to say that I would get a 56 page report and that is where he lost me. He reckoned he would spend 2h on site and then many more hours typing the report up. I suspect there would be an awful lot of ctrl+c and ctrl+v in the report
The house is in a part of London where the buyer(s) are only interested in converting to "HMO".
All the enquiries raised by the sellers solicitor were answered honestly and went via the solicitor assisting in the disposal of the estate.
That is what I got in my report. Some references to things that did not exist that were clearly cut/pasted/not removed.
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