You don’t need to have a drain survey before you buy your house, do you?
Money is tight when you are buying a new home, so many things to pay for, and if the drains are all ok, it would just be a waste of money, wouldn’t it?
Why might a surveyor ask for a drain survey?
Your building surveyor’s primary focus will be on the structure and integrity of the building. If they see cracks in the brickwork or stonework, they could well have concerns about cracks, disjoints or collapses in the drainage system causing water loss, close to the house foundations.
If there are large trees close to the property, roots could cause damage to the drains, as well as the foundations. You might not notice issues with root ingress straightaway, but six months down the line, problems appear.
Even if you don’t have cracks in the brickwork or a large oak tree in your back garden, your surveyor might recommend a pre-purchase drain survey because it does make sense to know what is going on below ground.
What might a pre-purchase drain survey find?
A pre-purchase drain survey (also known as a home buyer drain survey) may uncover the following problems within the drainage system:
root ingress • collapsed drains • pipe scale • cracked or broken drains • incorrect installation • pitch fibre • displaced joints • fractured gullies
What if the seller says there are no issues with the drains
This may be perfectly true. However any defects in the drain may not reveal themselves when there is an elderly couple living at the property, but then a large family of 5 moves in and now a slow running drain becomes a blockage.
A pre-purchase drain survey is not necessarily about defects that cause the drains to block, it can be more to do with water loss near the foundations.
Any root ingress in the drain may not be noticeable at first, but it will definitely get worse over time, causing cracks and blockages. A pre-purchase survey will identify any root ingress for repairs to be done.
How much are you buying your new home for?
The average price paid for a new home in the South East of England in 2017, according to Rightmove was £393,442, and in London, a massive £615,598.
Buying a home for most people is probably the biggest investment they will ever make. So why not invest just £225 plus vat for a pre-purchase drain survey from Drain Detectives to make sure there are no hidden horrors, that will come back to bite you once you have moved into your lovely new home.
So you have your pre-purchase survey report?
If the report shows no problems or defects, then that is great news.
The whole reason for doing a pre-purchase drain survey is to ensure that the home buyer knows exactly what they are getting when they buy the house. When we do a homebuyer survey, we are unlikely to find anything that would stop the sale of a property, because all drain defects can be fixed.
Most drain survey companies will give recommendations and costs for any drain repairs along with the pre-purchase survey report, so at the very least you can negotiate with the seller to take the cost off the asking price.
Many of the problems with the drains may be covered by the current seller’s house insurance, so they could still make a claim. This could potentially slow down the house move, but if their insurer agrees to pay for the repairs, they can actually be done after the sale has gone through.