Building Surveys

Buying selling or leasing Commercial Buildings.

Commercial full building surveys (for people buying a long lease on a commercial premises).

Our survey is a very detailed survey where we look at all aspects of the property on a non destructive / intrusive visual basis and covers all main aspects i.e. signs of structural movement, cracking, damp, loft and roof structure, wood boring beetle, dry rot , wet rot etc.

We can arrange for specialists to report on plant aspects such as lift engineers and heating and vent specialists as a bolt on to our basic report, or we can give you a visually based condition report within our survey.

We normally give a verbal rundown to give the customer the main gist of our findings the next working day after visiting the property and follow up with a written report 10 working days after carrying out the survey.

You get a pdf electronic version as soon as the report is complete and 2 hard copies in the post the day after.

The survey highlights any defects and wants of repair giving you a rationale and way forward for the repairs as well as an idea of approximate cost of repair.

Before taking on a lease we would always advise that you run through the Landlord and Tenant covenants of repairs with your solicitor.

If the lease is “Keep only” requiring you to keep the premsies in no better or worse condition than it already is, we would suggest that you discuss binding a photographic schedule of condition into the lease document with your solicitor.

Photographic schedule of condition

As touched upon above, we can produce photographic schedules of condition for you to bind into a keep only lease as a photographic record of the condition the property is in at the time you agreed to take on the lease. This is useful when the lease is the “Keep only” type, where you are responsible for keeping the property in no better or worse condition than it already is, and therefore prevents over repairing or improving at the end of a lease, or becoming liable for things you might not have been had better records and evidence been kept.

Photographic schedules of dilapidation

These are produced normally by the landlords surveyor and served upon the tenant at set times withint he lifespan of a lease and just prior to the termiantion date. They are a schedule of essentially lease breaches, which have led to disrepair of loss to the landlord. After serving an appropriate notice with a schedule a negotiation normally takes place between the tenant and the landlords surveyors to reach a settlement, which often involves part carrying out repairs and part financial settlement.

We are able to produce these schedules for Landlords or act for Tenants in a negotiator capacity defense capacity.

Please contact us for further information regarding commercial surveys.