Property Tips by Chartered Surveyors  from the Haynes House Manual series

First Time Buyers – What’s the Right Type of Home Survey?

Buying your first home can be a bit of a minefield.  Having taken the plunge and decided to buy, there will probably be a lot of property- related questions that arise. So it’s important to know who you can trust for impartial advice about the place you’re buying.

So who exactly is on your side?  Firstly, it’s important to remember that the friendly estate agent who showed you round the property is actually acting for the seller. So no matter how nice they are, they won’t be going out of their way to flag up any problems.

When it comes to the legal work  (aka the conveyancing process) bear in mind that your solicitor/conveyancer never actually visits the property you’re buying. Any a lot of conveyancing work today is done remotely online.

Although mortgage lenders also don’t visit the property, in many cases they will instruct a valuation surveyor to carry out a mortgage valuation. The surveyor will take a quick look at the property to confirm to them that it’s (more or less) worth the money you’re paying for it.

Although they may charge you the fee for this, it’s purpose is to reassure the lender that in the worst case scenario they could repossess the home and sell it to get their money back. Even if they send you a copy of the valuation it won’t tell you much, if anything, about the building’s condition. And increasingly, lenders are just relying on ‘desktop’ or ‘drive-by’ valuations and don’t even visit the property.

This is where appointing a Chartered Surveyor to carry out an RICS Home Survey for you comes in useful, because it means you have a trusted professional on your side.  Instead of just hoping for the best and buying the property ‘blind’,  a home survey will make you aware of any serious concerns and expensive defects.  And armed with your surveyor’s report, it’s normally possible to renegotiate a lower price.

With flats, the survey will also highlight any special Leasehold issues that otherwise could have proved very costly to resolve. But with finances already stretched, you don’t want to spend more that is necessary. So you don’t normally need to instruct the most expensive type of ‘Level 3’ Building Survey.

The 2 least expensive types of survey are:-

Level 2 RICS Home Survey –  aka ‘Homebuyer Report’

Here the surveyor reports on the whole property, where accessible, from the loft down to the drains, including the building’s structure.  It’s written on a specially designed RICS report, typically about 25 pages long.  It tells you about all significant defects, with recommended solutions, and alerts you to future maintenance problems. There’s also an option to include a valuation if you want one.

Level 1 RICS Home Survey – aka ‘Condition Report’

Level 1 Condition Reports are a budget survey prepared by accredited Home Inspectors, who may or may not also be RICS chartered surveyors. The report is more limited than a Level 2 Homebuyer and is written in a standard format with brief descriptions. Unlike a Homebuyer report no advice is provided on the causes of defects or suggested repairs/solutions. These are very straightforward surveys suitable for modern houses where fewer problems are anticipated.

Both types of survey use a simple ‘traffic light’ summary with each part of the building given a ‘Condition Rating’ of 1, 2 or 3.

To be sure you’re not paying over the odds for your survey, it makes sense to use a price comparison site like Rightsurvey. Our panel of local surveyors will charge you less than it would cost booking a survey without first comparing prices.

To see a range of survey quotes at low prices for free just click here.

See Rightsurvey.co.uk for a quick guide to valuation and survey prices

We would always recommend using RICS certified surveyors in every instance – don’t get caught out, get instant quotes for RICS surveyors here.