Once you’ve found a property you are interested in purchasing, you need a chartered surveyor to assess the structural condition of the building. A survey highlights any issues and structural problems with your property, gives you a clear picture of its overall condition, identifies future issues, and saves you a lot of money in the long run.
Because a survey is so important, it’s essential that you find the right person to carry out the job properly. This article outlines the factors you should take into consideration when choosing the best building surveyor, including experience, location, price, and service offering.
RICS Regulated
Always choose a chartered surveyor that is RICS regulated. RICS stands for the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and ensures that surveyors adhere to high standards, follow best practices, and always follow a strict code of conduct. RICS regulated surveyors are the highest quality surveyors.
Location
You need to choose a surveyor that is local to your area as they will need to access your property to inspect it. A local surveyor is also an advantage as they will have local knowledge of location-specific issues unique to the area.
If your surveyor understands the types of property and defects found in the area they know what they can expect to find in your property, can offer an insight into the issues facing your property, and predict any future problems you are likely to encounter.
Reviews
Reviews are a good indicator of how wonderful a service is. Gaining feedback from others and reading reviews of others’ past experiences with the surveyor will help you to gauge how competent, reliable, and skilled they are and whether they are the surveyor for you.
Price
Price should always be taken into consideration when choosing a chartered surveyor. However, don’t always opt for the cheapest, rather, choose the surveyor that offers the greatest value for money.
Price will vary between different surveyors and most likely depends on the size of your property, its design, the type of property, the age of your property, the extent of the survey, which survey you choose, the value of the property, and where the property is located.
Experience
Choose a surveyor that possesses extensive knowledge and experience in surveying a range of different properties, with specific substantial experience of surveying properties similar to yours.
If your property is listed, choose a surveyor that specialises in listed buildings. If your property is constructed from non-standard materials, choose a surveyor that specialises in non-standard buildings. This way, they will be thoroughly informed about what to look out for in your property.
Surveying Services
Does your chosen surveyor offer the survey you need? Does the survey go into the required depth and detail? Will the surveyor deliver your report on time to your deadlines? There are many different factors to consider when looking at the different surveying services on offer.
There are many different survey options, the most common being the Homebuyer Survey, Building Survey, and Specific Defect Survey. From identifying defects and structural issues, offering advice on maintenance and repairs, to inspecting specific features and overall condition, each survey and surveyor will investigate different aspects of your property. Your surveyor should be able to advise you on which survey to choose.
Every surveyor’s report will differ in depth and detail from general overview to thorough inspection, as will the time frame they report their findings to you. Research and ask questions to find the surveyor that provides the surveying service you require.
Choose The Best Chartered Surveyor
When choosing a surveyor, consider location, reviews, price, RICS regulation, experience, and surveying services to choose the best chartered surveyor to assess your property. It is important that you choose the right surveyor as the right surveyor can help you ensure your property is structurally sound, identify defects, assess your property’s overall condition, investigate future issues, and save you a lot of money in the long run.
