Review on moving to a newly refurbished
1930's Semi-Detached House
Independent Building Surveyors
If you are buying or selling a property we can offer you help and advice with building surveys, structural surveys, home buyers reports, independent valuations or provide help with any other property matters.
Please free phone us on 0800 298 5424 to talk to one of our building surveyors.
Caveat Emptor - buyer beware!
We recommend you always have an independent building survey as this will highlight any problems with the property. Caveat emptor means buyer beware and is why you need to have a building survey to find out if there are any problems within the property; the estate agent certainly will not advise you of any!
Remember the independent building surveyor that you employ will be the only person working for you with your interests at heart.
Property refurbished by builders / property developers
This property was a 1930's semi-detached house in a road a similar properties, which has been newly refurbished throughout by builders, including off road parking area to the front, new kitchen and bathroom.
There was still work to be completed at the time of our survey.
War years property
Client met Surveyor at the property during the survey
The client met the building surveyor at the property during the survey report. We recommend all our clients do this as it is great to meet you face to face to get a full understanding of exactly what you require from the survey and answer any questions you may have. We can also talk you through any issues we find with the property.
Tree expert
Our client told us he was a tree expert, and we both noticed a tree had been chopped down in the rear garden. The client understood the importance of always maintaining any trees and bushes in a garden and that most insurance companies don't like trees to be too near a property as roots can damage the house.
In this instance there were no large trees close to the house.
Influencing distance of trees to a
home
Chatting to the developer
We were also able to chat to the property developer on the phone, which was important as there were a number of things still unfinished and that posed a potential future problem that we were able to chat to him about.
For example, we noticed the chimney work was to a poor standard and there was no lead flashing, which we would recommend. The developer ensured us he would put this right.
Example of lead flashing
Properties built on a sloping site
The property was built on a sloping site, which is a common thing we see when carrying out a survey. A sloping site means that any water will run from the top of the ground to the bottom and the house was in the way. This could then lead to problems with dampness getting into the property, and in this particular case we could see instances of this which we showed to the client during the structural survey.
Sloping site
No weep holes in retaining wall
We also noticed there were no weep holes on the retaining wall in the garden. We recommended that these be added to reduce the water / ground pressure.
Weep holes on a retaining garden wall
Other surveying articles that may be of interest to you
The following articles may be of interest to you, but don't forget that we have written articles on many different areas of property:
What is a building survey
What does a chartered surveyor do on a structural survey?
Adding value to your property
Where do I find a good builder?
It's important to remember where builders come from
Good design really can save you money
We have also produced numerous other articles that you may wish to look at on our website click here
What do the circles and ovals mean in our building surveys?
In our building surveys and structural surveys we use ovals and circles to emphasise property problem areas so that you are not left wondering what the property problem is.
Oval highlighting a crack in the right
hand gable of a property. The
crack runs from the top down to
the bottom of the property
Our Good, Bad and Ugly Executive Summaries
Compare our surveys and compare our website
Within our building survey reports we have what we call our good, bad and ugly survey which is a building survey, which we have developed over many years, in fact several decades. We have listened to feedback from our clients and amended and altered our surveys to make them easy to read and describe issues clearly.
Please feel free to have a look at our website to see for yourself the quality of our website, articles and our Building Survey reports. We pride ourselves on our professional standard and easy to read tailor made reports which we have been carrying out for many years on every age, type and style of property across the UK. The key factor we believe is our surveys are easy to understand in plain English but do not take our word for it call us on free phone 0800 298 5424 and ask for an example of one of our surveys to be emailed to you.
We use many photographs and sketches in our surveys
Throughout our survey reports we use as many photographs and sketches as possible. Whilst the emphasis will always be on our written survey report, we enhance all surveys using photos and sketches using a powerful optical zoom camera, and which feedback from our clients agree that they like these included in their reports as it helps them to fully understand what we are saying in our survey reports.
Post war properties
Stretcher bond brickwork
Negotiating a retention / reduction in the purchase price based on what we found during our structural survey
Due to the amount of work still to be done on the property and various potential problems we found during our survey we recommended a retention of ten to twenty per cent is held against the builder/developer, which could be reduced from the purchase price of the house.
Independent Building Surveyors
We are experienced independent building surveyors who are knowledgeable in carrying out structural surveys on all eras, types, styles of properties. If you are looking to buy or sell a house, flat, bungalow or any other style and type of property we recommend you have a structural survey carried out by an Independent Builidng Surveyor. Free phone us for a friendly chat on 0800 298 5424.
Examples of our building surveys via email
If you are thinking of buying a property and are interested in having a structural survey or maybe a specific defects report carried out, or if you are trying to sell a property and would like a Pre-Sales Survey please call us on free phone us for a friendly chat on 0800 298 5424. We would be happy to email you several examples of our survey reports.
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