Are You Nervous About A House Survey On Your Home?

If you are selling your house and nervous about a house survey, this is natural and often times nothing to worry about. But on the other hand you also want to be sure you don’t have anything to worry about too.

So what to do if you are nervous about a house survey? If you’re nervous about a house survey because you know there’s something wrong with your house you should fix the problem first. But if there’s nothing wrong with your house there’s no need to be nervous, but for piece of mind consider paying for a building survey yourself and fix any issues found.

How to reduce your nerves when the surveyor comes to your house

It’s quite normal to be nervous about a house survey. But there are ways to mitigate your nervousness.

These are split between what you can do for yourself to reduce the nervousness. Then secondly, what you can do with your house to help give piece of mind.

Nervous about a house survey – what to do to calm yourself

If you are naturally a nervous person, there are a number of ways to calm yourself if you are nervous about a house survey. These include:

• Meditation. Meditation is a great way to relax yourself.
• Hypnotherapy. Hypnosis is a great way to relax and help with anxiety and stress. This not only means to get help from a professional hypnotist, but you can use self-help you. This includes help from top hypnosis profession Steve G Jones from this link. You can choose your perfect self-help hypnosis solution.
• Panic Away. Use this Free Audio Tool to end anxiety and panic attacks in the comfort of your own home.

Nervous about a house survey – how to mitigate against problems arising from the survey

If you are nervous about a house survey, there are a number of ways to mitigate the risk of anything being found wrong with your house during the survey.

Ways to mitigate problems arising out of a survey on your house include:

• Have an electrical check. Pay for an electrical check, then have any issues fixed before the arrival of a surveyor. This way you are less likely to be nervous.
• Have a gas safety check and boiler service. Pay for a gas safety check and boiler service. Then you’ll be able to rest easy knowing your heating system is sound.
• Commission a building survey yourself. Pay to have a building survey when you’re selling to uncover any problems you have with your house. Then have all problems fixed before the buyer’s surveyor arrives at your house.
• Check your building regulation certificates. If you’ve had any extensions or major building works that require building regulations, make sure you have the appropriate building regulation compliance certificates to show the surveyor.
• Sell and rent before buying again. Another good reason to sell and rent before you buy again is that you can focus on the sale of your house, without the worry your ongoing purchase won’t be affected by any problems found by the survey on your house. You might like to read about the 15 advantages of selling and renting before buying again.

All of the above solutions will make sure your house will ‘pass‘ the survey. But more importantly, by taking a proactive approach this will help you to be able to relax rather than be nervous about a house survey. In addition to this you will speed up the sale process.

If you don’t prepare your home properly, and if the buyer’s survey picks up a problem, this will slow down your sale. Or it could halt the sale of your house in its tracks if the buyers pull out because of the problem found. You’ll have to fix the problem(s) uncovered before you can put your house back on the market.

Common house survey problems found by surveyors to be nervous about

1. Damp problems. Of the three cause of damp, condensation is easily fixed So fix any condensation problems right away. However, if you have penetrating or rising damp this may result in your buyer pulling out. If you are worried about damp issues have these checked. Where relevant have any damp issues fixed before you put your house on the market.
2. Problems with your roof. You will usually know if you have severe problems with your roof, as you’ll get water ingress as a result of the damage. But there are other problems that can be found in a roof. These include inadequate insulation or poor ventilation. These can both be easily fixed, so fix them first.
3. Problems with the electrics. One of the best ways to check your electrics is to have an electrical survey carried out. If the survey highlights any problems, have these fixed right away. Having an electrical survey to hand will allow the surveyor to confirm the electrics are sound.
4. Problems with your heating system. It’s a good idea to have an annual boiler service and gas safety check for your own safety. But also this check will provide reassurance to the surveyor and buyers of your house.
5. Building regulation approval. If you’ve had any extension or alteration works done to your house, make sure the work was carried out in compliance with building regulations. If you didn’t, it’s possible to obtain retrospective building control approval, known as ‘regularisation’.
6. Cracks in your house. Does your property suffer from any cracks? Are any of these cracks serious. Not all cracks are serious, but if you are concerned and have cracks, make sure to have these checked by a professional.
7. Japanese knotweed. You may or may not know if you have Japanese Knotweed. But if you do this will likely scupper a sale.

Are you right to be nervous about house survey?

In an article in Mortgage Finance Gazette they report that of all the property sales that failed in 2019, 11% was as a result of a problem identified during the survey. This is more than 1 in 10 house sales which failed due to the survey, which to me is high.

I would therefore recommend you follow as much of the guidance in this article before your buyer instructs a surveyor. But even better, have your house checked before you put it on the market.

As a closing comment, another good reason to have a building survey when you buy a house is that this will give you piece of mind about what is or isn’t wrong with your house. Which means that when you come to sell, you are less likely to be nervous about a house survey.

If you were in any doubt about having a survey when you buy your next house, take a read of this article about buying a house without a survey or whether they are a waste of money.

How long will the surveyor be in your house?

If your buyer instructs a Homebuyer Survey the surveyor will be in your house for between 90 minutes to four hours. But if your buyer opts for a Building Survey it could take up to eight hours. The time it takes is affected by the size of your home, so a 5-bed home takes longer than a 3-bed home.

It’s worth noting that the surveyor is working on behalf of the buyer. So you are best not to ask them anything about what they have uncovered. If you do ask, they are more likely to politely tell you they cannot say anything. Or they may even say all is well, even if it isn’t.

If you are wondering what the surveyor looks for, take a read of this article on who organises a survey. In this article there’s a table of what each of the types of survey check for.

House survey problems who pays for the problems uncovered?

Any house survey problems uncovered will usually be paid for by you as the homeowner. This will either be to pay to have the problem fixed before the buyer moves in. Or the cost of repair will be deducted from the purchase price of the house.

But the other outcome will be the buyer will pull out. If this happens, this leaves you having to pay for the problem in any case so you can put the house back on the market.

I hope you’ve got something from reading this article about nervous about house survey

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