Home and building survey tips and tricks : Watch out for Vegetation, It may be lovely to have wisteria or ivy growing up your home, but beware that vegetation can cause damp in your walls as it retains water and some, like ivy can get in between the mortar joints and cause further damp areas. Make sure Windows are Doors are Water and Wind Tight, If you have wooden windows, check they are painted properly, sealed and there are no cracks in the windows that would allow any wind or water to get through. If they are plastic and double glazed, check they are well fitted and there are no draughts coming through. Make sure that the glazing meets current standards.

Plants and any other large object present on windowsills should be removed, as these will also be assessed by the surveyor. This saves the surveyor from having to move things around themselves. Mould is one of the most obvious signs of damp in a home and must always be dealt with as it can thrive if left alone. Make sure you scrub away any mould that is present in your kitchen or bathroom, fix dripping taps by replacing the washers.

It may be that you have been living in the house for a while and the property has become subject to general wear and tear. Instead of fixing up the property, you have decided to move on. This may decrease the value of your home as many buyers will look at the property as how ‘liveable’ it will be upon buying. If changes need to be made before a potential buyer can properly live in a property, this will make them less likely to buy it.

A property survey is a key stage during the the conveyancing process for any buyer. The results help you decide whether you should proceed with the purchase at the current asking price, negotiate with the seller due to defects or even pull out from the whole deal all together. As one of the most comprehensive surveys available, more often than not a building survey will be requested by potential buyers of your property. It is a wide range inspection of the entirety of a property done in more specific depth than a Homebuyers Report or a Mortgage Valuation. A Building Survey’s purpose is to give a detailed report of the condition of the property in question.

The RICS Building Survey is well suited to unusual properties, older or non-standard construction properties were buildings which are away from the status quo. They are most typically commissioned for older properties whether listed or not and are valuable for understanding the common issued associated with their original methods of construction, as well as giving new owners advice on the best methods to preserve or maintain their condition and rectify problems before they become devastating to the property. Where our traditional building stock has been modernised, altered or extended a RICS Building Survey will be able to investigate if these modern methods of construction are affecting the traditionally built building such as PVC or Cement, which in modern houses designed to be kept dry function surprisingly well but in older traditional stock designed to have breathability there inclusion can lead to all sorts of moisture retention and this can lead to rot or beetle infestation. See more details on Party Wall Surveyor Canterbury.

The most frequent question we get asked is, but we’ve had a survey the bank arranged it while it true that you can have a Level 2 or 3 survey through your mortgage provider. It is more likely a valuation report that has been commissioned and these are there purely to make sure the bank has the ability to get back from the property in resale what you’ve asked it to lend you. It doesn’t report on lots of things and in most cases, you never get to see it.