[Closed] House surveys

Valuation - they slow down to 15mph as they go past.
Homebuyers - 30mins in the house at most.
Full survey - depends. 2 hours up depending on what you want inspected. But you'll also want Gas/electric/HETAS people in too, as the building surveyor wont give any insight into those, he'll be doing the building only.

Recently went for the home buyers, ^^^ seems accurate. Dread to think what the Valuation contains, 'There are 4 walls and a roof".

The usual STW advice is go for a HB survey then get your building/sparky/other mates in to recce.

If not an option then go with full survey and agree to be there either throughout (if property has known issues) or at least for a debrief. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

What is advised if you're buying a flat? My bank said the full structural wasn't appropriate, but I'd sort of like to know if the roof is going to fall in, etc...

I guess things have changed but in '99 I bought a 1900s house in London and arranged a home buyer's report and asked if I could meet the surveyor at the property. He was there for hours and found lots that needed doing to the property, the report was great as I gave it to the builders when I later renovated the place to get everything sorted out.

We got a homebuyers survey on a 1930s 3 bed semi.

He sent me a mail with about 50 pictures on it the day after the survey...not really much use other than "what the hell is that big crack"?

Then a few days later we got a booklet in the post with his survey.

Nothing concrete in it really, they use a lot of generic 'cover my arse' wording suggesting that we look into various things or get experts in to take a look at stuff.

It said it might be a good idea to get the wiring looked at, but given the state of the market where we were buying and how long it took us to get an offer accepted we didn't bother.

Got the keys 8 weeks ago and among other renovations, we've had the house fully rewired but that was mainly because we got all switches and light fittings recessed into the walls. A big crack above the patio doors that the surveyor said was superficial ended up being because there was no lintel above it. Old wooden patio doors are often structural, and UPVC doors are not. There were cracks in the ceiling and in the room upstairs that the builder said was due to that...some of the floor joists in the room upstairs weren't resting on anything. He dug out the wall in the dining room, and when someone bounced in a particular place upstairs, you could see the floor joist bounce.

We've also got old lead pipes leading to the mains supply - not critical to replace unless traces of lead in the drinking water is higher than the threshold. This wasn't mentioned in the survey.

Most of the work we've done is renovation, but some was work was corrective;

Rewiring - surveyor said it would be a good idea to get this checked, we didn't bother, and have had the house rewired.
Structural issues causing cracks - survey said this was likely to be superficial.
Lead pipes - wasn't mentioned in the survey

Only had one done, homebuyers set up by the mortgage company. What a con. Still makes me angry to think about it.

There were cracks in the porch. Surveyor asked the owners, they said it had always been like that, so that's all his report said. Also said we needed a fire door between the house and the garage. Personally, the plaque on it saying "firedoor" convinced me that we do have one.

We had a roofing specialist look at the house before we bought it to give us a bit of confidence that the flat roof/balcony section wasn't going to give us any immediate issues.

They surveyed the whole roof and said it was in good condition and the flat roof wouldn't need any maintenance for approx 5 years.

Bought the house and now have two leaks only 2 months after moving in. One on the flat roof section. Both of which the roofer fixing says have been long term problems.

Needless to say I'm not happy with the roofing surveyor... £200 for a pi$$ poor survey and now a bill for thousands to fix a roof that the professional surveyor said was in "good condition"...

[i]Recently went for the home buyers, ^^^ seems accurate. Dread to think what the Valuation contains, 'There are 4 walls and a roof". [/i]

You aren't the customer of a valuation survey, your mortgage company is.

Homebuyers was a waste of time so we didn't bother this time.

They missed basic stuff like a leaking roof that you could clearly see from an upstairs window was due to no lead flashing and some cracked mortar buttered up over the tiles, part of the main roof was not resting on the gable wall and had a bit of old joist wedged between it and the chimney breast, but noted at length that the decoration was old, kitchen old, polystyrene tiles on one ceiling etc etc.

Now I know what to look for I could have done a better job myself.

So, all seemed very quick as they came round. Don't think they even went in to see the boiler / utility room. Valuation then?

A big crack above the patio doors that the surveyor said was superficial ended up being because there was no lintel above it.

I hope the surveyor picked up the bill for that!

After having two properties surveyed, i can only say they are p1ss taking lead swingers of the highest order.
Current property the clown suggested the house had subsidence, which i refuted, mortgage company then made me have a structural engineer look at it for £600, for less than half an hours work, to tell me what i already knew was thermal expansion.