Review of finding the right home

to enjoy your retirement

Independent advice

Whether you are a first time buyer or embarking on finding a beautiful home to enjoy your retirement we can provide help and advice with regard to building surveys, structural surveys, structural reports, independent valuations, property surveys, engineers reports, specific defects report, home buyers reports or any other property matters .

Please free phone 1stAssociated.co.uk on 0800 298 5424 .

Free phone 0800 298 5424

Finding the perfect home for your retirement

We were acting for a couple who were planning a retirement move. They are an active couple looking for a house with a good sized garden. This was actually the second house that we had surveyed for them. They thought the estate agent very much sold them the first house we surveyed as opposed to helping them find the right house. They were very pleased with our original survey which they felt made them not view the property with rose tinted spectacles. After much thought they had decided not to buy the original property.

1970's semi-detached property

The second property they asked us to survey was a semi detached 1970's two storey property which had off road parking to the front and a large garden and detached garage to the rear.

Meet the building surveyor at the property

We met the couple during the survey so we could discuss with them their requirements for the property which was useful as they informed us that they would like a conservatory extension to the property and wanted our opinion.

We would always recommend if you have the time available and can get to the property whilst the survey is being carried out that you meet the surveyor who will be more than happy to talk to you about any concerns and possible problems that you think the property may have together with any potential alterations and improvements that you may be looking to carry out to the property. We will, of course, also be happy to speak to you about the survey report once it has been completed.

Cold Bridging or Thermal Bridging

One of the characteristics that we come across fairly regularly in this age of property is cold bridging, or thermal bridging as it is also known, which had caused black mould in some areas.
	Cold bridging

Black mould	Explanation behind black mould

Cold Bridging Defined

Cold bridging is caused by a colder element in the structure allowing coldness to pass through the structure much quicker when warm moist air is present in the property, often caused by things like having a shower or a bath, cooking or washing, particularly if you are drying washing on the radiators. This is also caused by the general climate which results in condensation on the element.

Other items identified during our survey

As well as the problem of black mould we also identified the following problems:

1.  The central heating was dated. Generally boilers last ten to fifteen years depending upon whether they have been serviced or not. We advised the couple that they should budget to replace.

2.  The property had a shared driveway to the garage and we questioned whether it was actually wide enough to get a car down and suggested that they actually tried to drive their car down the driveway.

3.  There was asbestos to the garage roof.

4.  The garden was one of the main criteria that the couple really wanted to make sure was to their requirements so they were concerned to see what looked although like a pigeon coop at the end of an adjoining garden. We went spoke to the owners of the property and it turned out that the nets were to help stop their children's footballs from going over into the neighbouring garden. As part of our survey we always knock on the neighbours doors to find out if there are any issues you need to know about. Recently after knocking on a neighbour's door we discovered that there was an ongoing neighbour's dispute which needless to say our prospective purchaser was pleased that they had found out about prior to moving in!

Always have an independent building survey

Without a survey our clients would not have been aware of all the problems in the property and could incur additional expenditure that they had not been planning to put the problems right. A survey identifies all the issues which you can then use the information if necessary to renegotiate the purchase price.

We can email you examples of our surveys

Please feel free to have a look at our website 1stAssociated.co.uk to see for yourself the quality of our website, articles and examples of our Building Survey reports. We pride ourselves on our professional easy to read reports which are written in plain English which we have been carrying out for many years on every age, type and style of property across the UK. We would be happy to email you examples of our tailor made reports.

If you are thinking of buying a property and are interested in having a Structural Survey carried out or if you are trying to sell a property and would like a Pre-Sales Survey please call us on free phone 0800 298 5424 .

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