Surveyor questions for vendor - like what?

[Lelivre]

My 1980s house will have a home buyers survey next week. The surveyor called me to arrange and asked if I can be there to answer questions.

I have two tiny kids so really I want to be out and leave him to it. But what would he want from me? We haven't sold a house before...

I'm trying to switch off from the process and stay calm (not my strength!!) so I rather hoped all the intermediaries would do their thing (solicitor/ea/surveyor/bank) and give me the verdict!

Ours asked where the stop cock and electrics box, and he asked if we had any certificates for work done. I was dreading it but wasn't too bad although he gave nothing away to me, found some problems but sorted now. Good luck

Ah right. That makes sense. I will leave him a note if I'm going to be out. All certs and guarantees are with solicitors now.

The chap who came here asked wanted me to confirm my name, how long we'd lived here and how old we thought the house was, that was it. I told him when I thought the house was built (early 1950s), but he was adamant (to the point of being argumentative) that I was wrong, so I said I felt I had to leave it to him to make his own enquiries, so that this stance if things get difficult. If they are looking at everything properly they should be able to find what they need to know and solicitors will deal with guarantees (or lack of them).

He was fine the rest of the time and told me he would be reporting to mortgage company the next day. I found it very nerve racking while he was here, banging around in the loft and he spent ages looking at the back of the house (even though it was pelting with rain). Having said that, we had no negative feedback. Good luck.

I agree, its usually to ask if you've had any work done, if you have to provide copies of guarantees / building regs etc, perhaps about the boundary / driveway if its not clear. They might ask about electrics / plumbing / windows / boiler / damp course etc. If you have a cellar / loft etc whether they can get access, whether you'd mind lifting a corner of the carpet etc if they want to see the floorboards. I would suggest (if you can) to be there. If the surveyor thinks something is an issue, and you're not there to answer what could be a simple question, he might raise it in his report which the buyers might jump on / cause a fuss when its really a non-issue.

Ours asked lots of questions about when things had been done (rewriting, plumbing, age of various extensions etc), how old the boiler was, did we know there'd once been a fire in the loft (which we did).

He needed to know where meters,stop cocks were.

This is an important part of the sale process so really you should be there. If it's all too stressful then could your husband be home?

Right ok, I will give that all some thought. Having just had the same report done on an empty house where no one else attended; I didn't really expect I would need to be here. I'm wondering how good my report is going to be now if he couldn't quiz anyone.

We just had our survey done and the vendor was out, so now we have a list of about 20 things that our solicitor has to follow up with them which will probably slow everything down for everyone. I wish she had been there - the survey talks about possible damp which we're going to have to get a separate survey done for, because she wasn't there to ask if they could move furniture, lift the carpet or lift a floorboard.

Ah ok I don't want delays!

I took the advice. I had DM take my 3 yr old and I stayed most of the time with the surveyor and my 1 yr old. He was charming and most grateful he did not have to go back and forth to the agent with the keys. He had loads of questions, what I wanted for the house, what I got, how long marketed for. Location of: stopcock, boiler, electric meter, gas meter, drain. Any guarantees, any extensions and where the boundaries were. Nothing more scary than that!

I don't think we need to worry about survey outcomes but time will tell!

Thanks for the response.