Q: Good morning everyone.
I a question for my peace of mind. Our buyer had a home buyers survey recently on our property which came through fine and now he has his money in the place etc etc – the move is / was going to expire. Yesterday I had a call from his agent asking whether I was free this Friday as he was advised to have an engineers report done if next door had susidence which is now solved. Our house was never taken and tested before and after the work was done next door to see if we still ok – everything was fine. My question is can actually engineer more than just place the previous man who has the homebuyers guy did? Im told he is to look for obvious signs of movement – for me it would much more easily detected?
A:In short, yes a structural engineer will spot things that the homebuyer surveyor may not have. Homebuyer surveys are incredably basic, fast and really just have a quick look for any obvious signs of anything and rarely venture very far.
The structural engineer sounds as if he will be briefed by your buyer to specifically look for subsidence, and as such will be looking for any cracks internally or externally, will be looking at windows to see if they show any signs of not being level, will be looking at the roof externally to see if there is any bowing, and internally to check that the roof structure is still as intended. Normally roofs are a very good indicator of any movement below.
Have you had a look in the loft yourself? If you haven't had any problems with cracking (other than surface settlement cracks in plaster) then more likely than not you will be ok. Subsidence is basically movement and if there has been any more likely than not you would be aware. Surveyors would be able to spot subsidence equally as well as engineers (as would architects etc), but not many look specifically for the signs (other than the obvious ones) as for homebuyers reports they are not required as such to find very much more than is obvious. Sneaky vendors generally patch up plaster to get through a surveyors report, it sounds as if your buyers are just trying to make sure this isnt the case with you.
If you have no reason to think there has been any and have seen nothing suspicious yourself, then 99% chances are there hasnt been any!
A:They're just being cautious. The engineer is a structural engineer and he would be far more qualified than the surveyor as that is what he does all the time
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