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Rely on your solicitor's recommendation.
Yes,solicitor or settlement agent,lending institution or broker.
Tread carefully with Real Estate agents as they represent the vendor and have been known to choose their Building Inspectors accordingly.
The fundamental thing that ALL buyers should remember is that the RE agent is working for the vendor/seller and ultimately their commission and the Building inspector is working for you......
The building report will be the same whether it is paid for by the vendor or the purchaser. I've never seen a good building report. Sure, you can avoid the ones that are known to be "difficult", who make every house sound like it is about to fall over, and agents know which ones to avoid. They avoid them because they write up reports that don't help a sale, they word things badly, no matter who is paying for the report.
We lost a few thousand once when first home buyers read the building report on a house we were selling, solid as a rock, and he wrote truthfully "evidence of water leak from bathroom". He COULD have added that the timber was bone dry, the leak was clearly from about 30 years ago. This was obvious to everybody, but he didn't bother to say it was a very old leak and very old evidence. They got spooked. Still wanted the house though, for a couple of grand less in case they needed to fix the leak.
I find it amusing that people (especially potential buyers) think a building report done before a sale and paid for by the vendor is somehow going to have a different result than if the potential purchaser pays for it. That is just crazy.
We are having one done tomorrow for a house we will be selling. It gives us a chance to fix anything we may have missed. If the purchasers think we have somehow persuaded a professional to give us a dodgy report, that is their choice, but it is a flawed argument. It is an unknown professional builder (with no reason to lie because I'm paying him).
Some people can find a conspiracy as soon as they get out of bed.
Yes the report should always be the same whether it is paid for by the purchaser or the vendor, however if a building inspection company are getting a multitude of referrals from a real estate agency then keeping the Real estate agency happy may become their priority.
I don't believe that you can possibly be serious with this comment.
A good building inspector will always contact his client after they receive their report and ensure that they fully understand its content putting defects into perspective but ultimately it is their clients prerogative as to any issues that they may wish to negotiate on.
You state that you"have never seen a good building report",but you are still getting one done tomorrow,why?
The inspector should also make a comparison with similar properties to ensure that their client is fully aware of the fact that their subject property is typical,or otherwise,of other properties located within that location.
I would be interested to know if any building report actually does a comparison with other properties nearby? I've never seen this, but I've more anecdotal evidence and word of mouth evidence than having read a lot of reports. I am sure the reports I've seen and read have not compared to other houses nearby. The only comparison I've noted is when they say verbally "for a house this age, this is in good condition" but the reports don't read that way because they need to cover their butts. Our own reports didn't go into this type of comparison from memory. Verbal chat after the report is different and I do recall with our son's unit the inspector saying that for a building of its age, it was in good condition, and built better than some of the modern units. But that was not written in the report.
Naturally RE agents may feel that their sale is under threat but good ones will earn their commission by educating themselves to the process,negotiating and problem solving.
A good agent cannot convince a buyer spooked by the wording used by a building inspector, designed to cover his butt. Case in point with a sale we had years ago. There were no termites, no evidence of old termites, nothing in the garden. The wording used made it should like they could attack the house any minute. Doh! This is Queensland. Termites can attack any house any minute. Scared the buyers. They wanted a reduction. I wanted to tell 'em where to go, but we didn't want to lose the house we had contracted to buy, so we took $2K off for a couple of stumps that needed packing.
The house we wanted to buy had the sale fall through because the building inspector reported truthfully there were no ant caps and pointed out the risk. That buyer was probably a first home buyer who was spooked by "no ant caps" and the fact ant caps are meant to stop white ants and crashed the contract. We knew there was someone waiting for our contract to crash, so we gave up the $2K to our purchasers rather than lose the house we wanted to move to.
If they have nothing to hide then why are so many agents not building inspector friendly?
Wylie,I am a director of our family run Building inspection company in Perth.
Now your determination makes perfect sense .
As a member of this forum for a number of years I am planning to reveal this to members and answer their queries accordingly.
Great. That will be a welcome addition IMHO.
The home inspection sector is subject to much misunderstanding and hopefully I will be able to address many of forum members issues shortly.
p.s....Ant caps do not stop termites.......
PPS....We do make comparisons to similar properties based on our experience of the Perth metropolitan property market.....
Your cubby house story is typical of the lack of communication between interested parties with nobody gaining anything.If it was not secured it could be deemed a safety hazard but a decent building inspector should advise on the ease of securing it and thus helping to provide a win,win situation
When I recommend a pest & builder to buyers I recommend one that will do a full & honest report, & take time to discuss the results in details with the buyers. They still get the full details & the report looks quite negative (they always do), but the inspector can explain further & give an idea of actual cost of repairs & whether they are essential or just optional, so the buyers won't get scared away if it's nothing major.
I've seen other building inspectors that constantly whinge - one said he doesn't make any profit from doing building inspections because of high insurance costs, and the only reason he does them is as a service to the community and to maintain to maintain his good reputation as a builder... haven't recommended him!