Did you now that in Victoria the business of Pre Purchase Building Inspections is unregulated and as such not many so called building inspectors are VBA Registered Building Practioners as they are not required to be -Building Inspections Reservoir reports are essential.
They may be members of the Master Builders or HIA but that’s not important as any trades person can become a member ,not difficult.
When you engaged a house inspections inspector to conduct your building inspection did you ask him if he’s a VBA Registered Building Practitioner ?
Well are you surprised that 1 out or 50 people would ask that question as not many people are aware that the industry is unregulated.
There are many great building inspection firms in Melbourne but how do you now whos genuine and is a Registered Practioner or Registered Builder
Ask to see there credentials before employing them, don’t take there word as many pre purchase inspectors are liars and only care about the money
How many reviews on there sites are genuine, we don’t now the answer ,its a problem.
Most building inspection inspectors conduct the most popular inspection service which is the Pre Purchase Building Pest Inspection., never take advice from a real estate agent.
We should not call it a pest we should call it Pre Purchase Building Termite Inspection as we are looking for termites not spiders.
Your future home may look great from the outside and even when you start looking internally going from room to room everything looks fantastic with no Problems or defects evident.
Generally most real estate inspection firms allow only half an hour for you to peruse the property which is not enough, you may be able to go again but you always ask yourself the question when you get home did the house have fly screens on the windows or do all the air conditioners work and when were they last serviced?
We recently inspected a property in a Melbourne suburb called Berwick which is approx. 37 kms out of CBD Melbourne and is very attractive to young family’s and has a population of approx. 47,000 people.
Our client was the father of the owners daughter and he called us to conduct a property building inspection of there property as he was concerned about certain aspects of the house in particular the floors and the walls.
His daughter and husband had bought the property approx. 12 months ago without conducting a building inspection as they were being pressured by the real estate agent to buy as he had another client that was going to sign the contract which was unconditional
They needed to act fast if they wanted the property said the real estate agent
who are more concerned about there commission than the buyer or there rights.
The floors of the property were out of level by approx. 35mm in sections and there was excessive bounce to floor boards to bedroom/living room floors.
The walls in the entry and living room had vertical cracks of 15mm which indicated to me that there was a problem with the footings and may have issues with drainage.
During our inspection of the sub floor we discovered that the majority of the timber stumps were rotten at the base and there were a few stumps where the bearers were suspended and not sitting on the stumps as is required.
This was a structural defect issue and was not safe in its current state and the client was advised as a matter of urgency to contact a re blocker to rectify before allowing his children and grandkids back into the property .
The owners did not have the funds to rectify the issues that were found as the rectification costs were in the excess of $22,000 which included the walls that required underpinning.
The father organised the rectification works and paid the amounts required as his children did not have the funds.
This could have been alleviated if only they had conducted a Pre Purchase Property Inspection which would have advised them of the property condition and the existence of defects and cost to rectify the defects.
