Free Damp and Timber Survey

Free Damp and Timber Surveys – are they really free? No!

We regularly get pre-purchase clients, homeowners and estate agents ringing up and asking for a free damp and timber survey or a free damp and timber survey report for a mortgage. We reply no, who works for free in this world? They ask us to provide a quote to carry out the survey. The usual response from those looking for a free survey is “that’s a lot more than I have already been quoted” or “my local damp expert does it for free but he’s away at the moment”.

Firstly, those who are experts in their respective fields do not work for free. They have spent many years (and a lot of money!) learning and training intensely, and bring a wealth of experience to the services they provide.

Think about this in another way – would a private doctor, private dentist or solicitor carry out their expert services for free?

The public and those employed in jobs that deal with property i.e estate agents, should be researching these companies that are offering free damp and timber surveys. Many estate agents are particularly guilty of recommending “damp specialists”, usually because they are a mutual friend or just the locally-known cheap contractor. These companies won’t be regulated or qualified. In many cases, these companies will provide their clients long-term guarantee on the treatment knowing full well that they won’t be in business long enough to honor their guarantees (con-men have a habit of shutting down a business and re-branding).

A lot of estate agents will recommend the local “damp-proofing” companies or the cheapest guy on the market to get the property sale through as fast as possible. A fast sale means fast commission and then on to the next one.

Unless they are a charity or doing it for a charitable cause, companies offering free damp and timber surveys will be looking to make money any way they can. The root causes and remedies of damp issues are not common knowledge, and a lot of contractors offering free surveys use this to their advantage. Following the “survey” of the property, they will “diagnose” your damp by immediately recommending rising damp treatment on a property that more than likely does not need it (see our page on Damp Proof Course Myth ).

This is a plea to all individuals that own, rent or are buying and selling properties (estate agents – we are looking at you!). Please instruct a fully-trained specialist to undertake a damp and timber survey, and get a correct diagnosis on your issues.

Buying a property is one of the biggest investments in your lifetime – why would you skimp out on unqualified advice about issues in your property and risk only masking the real issues, or even making them worse?

This is the biggest investment you’ll ever face as a first-time buyer or buying a new bigger home. Why would you take unqualified advice on what is wrong & not wrong in the property? If you have a serious health issue, you wouldn’t just ask an unqualified friend for advice and remedial solutions, would you? You would seek advice from a medical specialist that knows exactly what they are talking about.

The truth is, it costs money to instruct a fully-trained, expert surveyor to inspect your property (for the points mentioned above). Depending on a number of factors including; the size of the property, the areas you require inspecting, the purpose of the survey etc, the average cost for a proper survey can vary between £150-£500 (sometimes more). The surveyor will usually be on site for approximately 2 hours, depending on the complexity of the case, and the report takes a further 3-4 hours to write up. Who would do this for free?

The report you’ll receive from a free survey will be very brief and not detailed at all and will not tell you what the issue is. You’ll just see a quotation for damp proof treatment and that, unlike your “survey”, won’t be cheap.

The entire process of buying and selling a house is stressful enough, the last thing anyone needs is the discovery of a damp and/or timber issue once they move in, even though they had a free damp survey carried out.

Here at DampServe, we believe that estate agents and anyone employed to deal with the purchase of property should exercise a duty of care in these situations, and recommend the correct specialist to undertake the correct survey. Not an individual/company who will provide a free or extremely cheap report and unnecessary treatment quotes for the purpose of hurrying the sale though.

We hear pre-purchase horror stories on a daily basis about the consequences of trying to save some money by instructing a poor service. People move into homes, find damp appearing everywhere, even some cases of dry-rot (Wet Rot and Dry Rot) discoveries that were likely to be there at the time that their free survey was conducted. The new owners find out that the rectification of these issues is going to cost them thousands of pounds. If only they had paid a small fee to instruct a specialist damp and timber survey. They would have been fully aware of all damp and timber issues and would have known that they were getting into or even request that the previous owner rectified the issues before the completion of the sale.

So when you see “Free Damp and Timber Survey” – beware. This means absolutely nothing, as you’ll end up paying for it, and more, in the end.