fatscoobyfella

What is the average cost of a full building inspection roughly?House a a 2 up 2 down stone cottage approx 150yrs old.
Are surveyors accountable in any way at all if they dont spot serious faults after they have inspected your (potential)property?

Have a deep mistrust of anyone who wears a suit ya see..Plus,im a bit tight,and dont like the idea of a guy with a piece of paper and a board,charging me a fortune for a swanning round a house for 10 mins..

Cheers for any info....

Lee247

Sorry, off topic for a second
Did you manage to get in touch with the lady in Wales

fatscoobyfella

Ahhh,you remember...

Errr,in a word...no....

But we did finally view the house properly,made an offer and after a bit of haggling a price has been agreed.So we have instructed conveyancing solicitors and am currently looking for a surveyor to give the house a good looking at,to find any potential probs...

Even tho the house is old and its pretty immaculate to look at,i am a novice when it comes to house buying.So i dont really know what to look for,for the best.

I have many good friends who are builders and have bought and sold houses as part of there business...

In real terms(apart from the paperwork),what are they gonna do,that my mate wouldnt do.?? For the price of a pint i might add!!!

ta

Lee247

Excellent news I live in a real old house, been here for 9 years and we are still doing it up. All good fun
Am real pleased for you. Sorry can't help with your question

fatscoobyfella

No prob,

Thanks for your reply....

richardg

an inspection will take longer than 10 mins (10 mins is your typical mortgage "valuation" inspection). are you after a homebuyer report or a full structural survey? structural survey may be more advisable on the basis of the age and construction of the property - call a few local surveyors and ask for a fee quote. a homebuyer report for something like that would probably cost in the region of £600 - not sure about the structural survey though. if you'd like an example of a homebuyer report, I have a couple from previous purchases - PM me, I'll need an address to post a copy to - then you can see the level of detail to expect (I'm a chartered surveyor, but not a building surveyor).

HTH

john_s

iTrader: (1)

I believe that they are liable if they miss something that could reasonably be expected to be noticed by a competant surveyor.

They will carry insurance to cover themselves in case there are large financial implications in them missing something.

HTH.

John.

richardg

sorry - switched off half way through reading your post so didn't remember all the questions. [good case for insurance methinks] btw i wear a suit, but if it makes you feel any better i don't wear a tie (well, not very often anyway)

i believe you have to show some form of loss in order to have a claim (could be wrong). but, yes in general i believe that as you are paying for 'informed advice from an expert in a certain field' you would reasonably expect there to be some form of liability if the advice is incorrect or possibly mis-guides you. you will probably notice that you are unlikely to receive a water-tight answer from a surveyor writing a survey report. ie, they are unlikely to say "no problems with this house" - more likely "there are no obvious defects with the property".

john_s

iTrader: (1)

Might be heading a little off topic, but I think there might now be case law that say you don't even need to be paid for giving advice to be liable... ISTR that someone (think it might have been a QS) was sued after giving a bloke in the pub some advice. Shocking!

John.

Brendan Hughes

John - difference btwn breach of contract and duty of care, I guess.

OP - my full survey cost about £600 and took maybe 2 hrs for a 2-bed end of terrace. Contract had plenty of disclaimers saying "I can't be liable for anything" and was written in guarded terms, but I'm sure you'd have a comeback if anything untoward happened. My chap missed opening a wardrobe to see a massive crack in the wall behind, but it turned out to have happened 20 years ago with no movement since, so the dispute never went further.

The report is more to guide you to buy the house or not, rather than a watertight guarantee that everything is fine.

richardg

true, you have to be very careful how you word anything these days!