Don’t just rely on the mortgage valuation report you have to pay for when you buy a property.
The mortgage valuation report is simply a confirmation to your lender that it will get its money back on your property if you can’t pay. However, the valuation isn’t a survey and won’t tell you if there are any potential problems with the building.
Jonathan Cornes, Partner at JCA, Chartered Building Surveyors said: This tallies with recent research, where less than 50% of people said that they’d had a proper survey and a quarter of people who’d bought properties in the past five years, found faults after moving in.
He continued: “But surely we wouldn’t purposefully ignore problems that could cost us later? The RICS report went on to say that 58% of respondents wrongly believed that a valuation report covered the building’s condition, including nasties such as damp and risk of subsidence.”
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Clearly, many buyers are unaware of how little they’re getting from a valuation report – and just how much it can cost them in the long run. When we’re buying a property, it’s imperative to get either a homebuyer’s report (which covers condition of the property) or a complete building survey (which gives a more detailed report on the structural safety).
If you have ever watched any of the TV Property programmes like “Sarah Help, My House is Falling Down”, you’ll have seen how few of the buyers had full surveys. Sadly (but not surprisingly) their properties were often infested with rats, sinking with subsidence or, in one case, flooding due to an unnoticed water well in the basement.
Ok, these were extreme cases that make for good viewing, but in my mind there’s a simple way to avoid these problems – make surveys mandatory on all properties.
That way, we can all avoid nasty surprises and get on with the business of turning our homes into castles.
Property Aspects Magazine appreciates the contribution in writing this article, from Jonathan Cornes Associates
