Surveys can save you money. This is a property in Hale Barns that I looked at last year for an RICS Level 2 Home Survey. It was a modern bungalow built circa 1990. It had been empty for a while and condition was cosmetically dated but looked adequate overall.
It should have been a simple survey, but it did not work out that way. In the main bathroom, skirting boards around the shower cubicle were damp – bearing in mind the house had been empty for months and no one had used the shower, this was something to raise my surveyor’s sixth sense.
At the back of the shower, there was a cupboard accessed from the hall. The skirting here was also damp, and there was a stud wall separating this from the shower.
Next to the main bathroom, separated by a blockwork wall, there was an en suite shower room. The floor next to the toilet was damp.
So, what was causing the dampness? The answer to this question takes us to the limit of an RICS Level 2 Home Survey because the inspection is non-invasive: that means that we cannot lift floor coverings or open up walls. This property needed an invasive inspection – removal of the shower tray, removal of the piping box in the en suite bathroom, lifting floorboards, and opening up the stud wall between the shower and the hall cupboard, and this was what we recommended to the client. The cause was most likely to be a small leak from a pipe buried in the wall.
What was the risk to the property? There were two separate risks. The first was that the floors were timber. Dampness to the skirtings suggested that dry rot to the skirtings, the stud wall, and to the timber floor was a serious possibility. The second risk was that removing parts of both bathrooms to investigate would mean needing to replace two bathrooms as they were quite dated anyway.
On the basis of the risks, the client was still willing to buy the property but managed to negotiate a reduction of £40,000 from the purchase price. This case, one amongst many, shows the value of having a survey before you make a purchase. Remember, surveys can save you money.