We know that a lot of homeowners will worry if a surveyor is due to come into their home. After all, their job is to inspect everything and make sure your home is structurally sound and everything is as it should be. What if they judge you for things that aren’t right?
Firstly, rest assured a surveyor is never judging you! They are there to check the bones of the house, not anything that’s inside it, and they aren’t there to place blame if they do find something wrong. All they want to do is do their job as best as possible, and answer any questions the buyer might have so that the sale can go ahead smoothly. So when it comes to getting ready for a surveyor to come to the house, here are our top 4 tips to prepare for a home survey.
Providing information on how to access the property, and the best place to park before we arrive is extremely helpful for a couple of reasons. First, it means that we don’t have to carry our equipment from 2 streets over if we don’t have to – that stuff can get heavy after a while! Knowing about parking and any restrictions will also help us to focus the time spent on the survey and make sure the process doesn’t take any longer than it needs to. We don’t want to eat up your whole day after all!
We also need information on access within the property as well. Are all the rooms accessible? Is there a loft ladder and lights in the roof space? (we spend a lot of time in roofs!) Can we get around to all sides of the property? If you’re able to provide easy access around and throughout the property, it means your surveyor can finish their job quickly and limit bringing any of the outside into your home -especially if it’s typical British weather outside!
Finally, have any of the rear access routes been opened for the inspection, or are there keys freely available for the surveyor? This can be a great help, since most of our observations are made from the ground, and sometimes we need to hunt for that perfect position in the rear alleyway to get a good look at that last bit of the roof. This allows us to fully report on the condition of the property and remove any potential doubts the buyer might have.
In the UK a good chunk of our housing stock is quite old, so if you were to walk into a random home it would likely have been there for some time! Around 83% of UK homes (so about 23.6 million) were built before 1990 (some 34 years ago at the time of writing), and around 20% of homes are over 100 years old.
Why have we told you that? Because the chances are that any property has had repairs done or parts replaced since it was first built. It’s also probably been extended or had some improvements made, especially with all the government schemes in place to make homes more energy efficient.
As building surveyors, we can reasonably estimate when these works were done by just looking at how they were built and with what materials. But having more information is always a bonus! If you have any documentation or information on what was done and when, it lets us explicitly state the history of the property. This means a more informed purchaser who’s more confident making the commitment to buying your property.
This one might require you to do a bit of digging. The majority of the time finding the services in a property (like gas and electricity meters or stopcocks) is pretty simple, but sometimes it can turn into a game of hide and seek. Confirming where these are before the survey and telling the surveyor (either face to face or with a note) can save a lot of time! Not to mention reduce the risk of further inspections being needed to confirm these things.
At Harrison Clarke, we’ve pretty much seen it all. Stopcocks that now live below the floorboards after an extension in the 1960s, gas metres hidden behind newly formed downstairs toilets, drain covers covered with grass or gravel – all of these things need to be seen and commented upon, and if we don’t know where they are in advance then things become incredibly difficult. It also means that the surveyor will have to state that they can’t report on the condition of the property, potentially leaving a question mark in the buyer’s head that could lead to them pulling out of the sale. So the biggest tip we have is – know where your services are, and make sure they’re easy to access!
The single most common issue we’ve found with surveys is that even in a home that looks loved and well–maintained, there can be issues if records aren’t kept. For example, if we don’t see any evidence that the boilers have been serviced within the last 12 months, or that the electrics have been tested within the last 5 years, then we will have to recommend that the purchaser’s legal advisor ask for copies of these certificates. If they aren’t available then the vendor (you) will be asked to have them checked and new certificates provided to prove that they’re in good, safe condition. That’s why we always recommend you make sure your services (gas and electric) have been serviced and inspected, and that you leave copies of the certificates out on the day of the survey. The same goes for any warranties, guarantees or statutory approvals relating to works or improvements to the property. Having these readily available means that the surveyor can confidently report on the property, allowing your buyer to proceed with fewer doubts and questions about the property, reducing the risk of them pulling out of the sale.
The good news is, none of these things take a huge amount of time. In fact, you should know most of them already! You might need to do a bit of hunting for documents and stopcocks, but on the whole, preparing for a home survey isn’t as scary as it sounds. The only thing you need to do now is pop the kettle on – surveyors run on coffee! If you have any questions, or would like to know how Harrison Clarke could assist you in performing surveys, please feel free to contact our team on 02381 55 00 51.
For more expert advice on surveying and property matters, check out our range of informative videos on our website or YouTube channel. Harrison Clark Chartered Surveyors is here to guide you every step of the way!
At the time of writing, we have a total of 107 reviews across Trustpilot and Google. We are proud to say that they are all 5 star ratings across the board.
Discover something you would like to know more about?
