Timber survey in Edinburgh

For a lot of people in the East, the survey is not really about the timber. It is a document with a job to do. Somebody in the chain, a lender's valuer, a solicitor, or the surveyor who wrote the single survey in the home report, has asked a question that nobody has answered yet, and until it is answered on paper the transaction is stuck.

That shapes how the report is written. Thenational timber survey page covers what happens on the day and what a surveyor is looking for. This page is about the paperwork it produces and the practical business of getting somebody through the door of a building you may not own yet.

What has to be in it for it to do the job

A quote is a price for work. A specialist timber report is a diagnosis with a price attached, which is a different document, and it is the second one the chain is asking for. Six things make the difference.

• The identification, named. Dry rot, wet rot, or the beetle species, not a general line about damp and decay
• The cause. Where the water came from and whether it is still running
• Whether it is active now, or historic damage that stopped when a leak was fixed
• The extent, and what was opened up or lifted in order to establish it
• The proposed work, itemised, with a figure against it
• What could not be inspected, and what would be needed to inspect it

Moisture readings and the date belong in there too. A reading taken on a particular day is evidence in a way that an adjective is not, and it also gives you something to compare against if the same wall is checked again after the repair.

The home report follow up

The single survey inside a Scottish home report puts a repair category against defects, and where timber decay is suspected it will typically recommend further investigation by a specialist. That wording is doing something specific. The surveyor is not saying the property has dry rot. They are saying that establishing whether it does is outside what a visual inspection of a whole property can settle, and that somebody should lift a board.

Two outcomes follow, and both are useful. Either there is a problem, in which case you now have its extent and its cost in writing before you are committed to a price. Or there is not, in which case the report says so plainly, and that clears the query for good. It is worth understanding that the second outcome is common and is not a wasted fee.

Access, which is what actually delays these

Edinburgh's building stock creates access problems that a detached house never does, and they are worth anticipating because they cost days rather than hours.

1. The common stair. Somebody has to let the surveyor in. For a stair on a factored or door entry system, that is a call to make in advance rather than a hopeful buzz at the door.
2. The shared basement or cellar. Often the exact space that needs looking at, and often the one nobody has a key for. Ask the seller, the factor and the neighbours early, and ask all three rather than one.
3. The rear elevation. Reaching it can mean going through the drying green, another owner's garden, or a locked back close. If a dormer or a gutter is part of the query, this decides whether it can be seen at all.
4. Furniture and floor coverings. Boards cannot be lifted under a wardrobe or a fitted carpet. Clearing the relevant corner before the visit gets you a better report for the same fee.
5. Tenants. An occupied let needs proper notice, and that notice period is part of your timeline whether or not anyone remembered to include it.

Working to a settlement date

Say the date when you enquire. The visit can usually be arranged sooner than people fear, and the report follows the visit rather than trailing weeks behind it, because a report written a fortnight later is no use to somebody with a mortgage offer expiring. What genuinely cannot be compressed is the access chain above, which is why the first advice to anybody mid purchase is always to start on the keys and the permissions today and worry about the diary second.

If the timing does not work, you will hear that rather than a comfortable maybe. There is no version of this where you are better off being told the date is fine and then finding out three days before settlement that it is not.

One visit, all three problems

Rot and beetle share their causes, so they get looked at together. A damp joist end in an outside wall is a candidate forwet rot and for beetle at the same time, and if it has been wet for long enough with no ventilation it is a candidate for dry rot as well. It would be daft to send three people to the same floor void. The visit covers all of it, includingwoodworm, and the report says what was found and what was not.

Coverage runs across Edinburgh, the Lothians, Fife and the Borders, so Musselburgh, Dalkeith, Livingston, Linlithgow, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy, North Berwick, Peebles, Galashiels and St Andrews are all in. TheEdinburgh branch page has more on how the eastern side works, and the guarantee page covers the questions worth asking about any warranty attached to remedial work.